UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES BROWSING ROOM THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES Demote toe toe !3al?ac PARISIAN LIFE VOLUME V LIMITED TO ONE THOUSAND COMPLETE COPIES NO .713 STEALTHY EXAMINATION OF PONS'S TREASURES These three thieves were still looking at each other, each a prey to his voluptuous enjoyment, the great- est of all, the satisfaction of success in the pursuit of fortune, when the voice of the sick man rang out vibrating like the sound of a bell. " Who is there ? " cried Pons. "Monsieur, lie down again ! " exclaimed the Cibot, springing towards Pons. THE NOVELS OF HONORS DE BALZAC NOW FOR THE FIRST TIME COMPLETELY TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH THE POOR RELATIONS COUSIN PONS SECOND EPISODE BY WILLIAM WALTON WITH FIVE ETCHINGS BY CHARLES-BERNARD DE BILLY AND XAVIER-FRANCOIS LE SUEUR, AFTER PAINTINGS BY ALCIDE-THEOPHILE ROBAUDI IN ONE VOLUME PRINTED ONLY FOR SUBSCRIBERS BY GEORGE BARR1E & SON, PHILADELPHIA COPYRIGHTED, 1896, BY G. B. * SON t. O K - t/3 THE POOR RELATIONS SECOND EPISODE COUSIN PONS 189960 COUSIN PONS Toward three o'clock of an afternoon in the month of October, in the year 1844, a man about sixty years of age, though most persons would have thought him older, was passing along the Boulevard des Italiens, his nose to the scent, his lips hypo- critical, like a merchant who has just concluded a sharp bargain, or like a young man who comes out of a boudoir very well satisfied with himself. This is, in Paris, the highest possible expression of per- sonal satisfaction in man. When this old gentle- man appeared in the distance, those persons who pass their days seated on the chairs along the boule- vard, given up to the pleasure of analyzing the passers-by, allowed to appear on all their faces that smile, peculiar to the Parisian, which says so many things, ironical, mocking, compassionate, but which, to animate the countenance of the Parisian, blase as he is with sights of every kind, requires the highest living curiosities. One word may explain the archaeological value of this worthy man, and the cause of the smile which repeated itself, like an echo, from eye to eye. A certain actor, named (3) 4 THE POOR RELATIONS Hyacinthe, celebrated for his witticisms, being asked one day where he procured those extraordinary hats, at the mere sight of which the audience laughed, replied : " I do not have them made, I keep them! " And in like manner, among the million actors who compose the great company of Paris there are unconscious Hyacinthes, who carry on their persons all the absurdities of their period and seem to you so completely the personification of a whole epoch, that you burst into laughter, even though you may be at that moment devoured by the bitter chagrin caused by the treachery of some former friend. Preserving, as he did, in certain details of his costume, an uncompromising fidelity to the fashions of the year 1806, this passer-by recalled the Empire, without being too much a caricature of it. For the close observer, this fineness of discrimination ren- ders such evocations of the past extremely valu- able. But this conjunction of trifling things is worthy the analytical attention with which are endowed all these connoisseurs in the art of lounging ; and to excite the general laughter, the passer-by should offer some such absurdities as those the sight of which would "stop a clock," to use a common saying, and such as the actors seek to insure the success of their entrance upon the stage. This old man, thin and dry, wore a spencer, of the nut colored, over a greenish coat with white metal buttons ! A man in a spencer in 1844 that is, you see, as if COUSIN PONS 5 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 person. Before the peace of Amiens this English- man had thus solved the problem of covering the shoulders without crushing the whole body under the weight of that frightful box-coat, which in our day has finally fallen upon the backs of the old hackney coachmen ; but, as the fine figures are in the minority, the fashion of the spencer for men had in France only a passing success, notwithstand- ing the fact that it was an English invention. At the sight of the spencer, the men from forty to fifty years of age clothed this gentleman in imagination with top-boots, kerseymere small-clothes of pistachio- green with knots of ribbon, and saw themselves once more in the costume of their youth ! The old ladies recalled their early conquests ! As to the young people, they wanted to know why this elderly Alcibiades had cut off the tails of his coat. Every- thing was so much in accord with this spencer that you would not have hesitated to name this passer-by an homme-Empire, just as we say a meuble- Empire; though he symbolized the Empire only for those to whom that magnificent and grandiose epoch was known, at least de visit; for a certain fidelity of memory as to past fashions was needful for its per- ception. The Empire is already so far away from us that it is not every one who can picture to him- self its Gallo-Grecian reality. 6 THE POOR RELATIONS The hat worn on the back of the head exposed almost the whole of the forehead with that species of bravado by which the public officials and the citizens were just then endeavoring to make head against that of the military. It was, moreover, a horrible fourteen-franc silk hat, under whose brim a pair of high and large ears had left whitish traces, vainly combated by the brush, the silk tissue badly stretched as usual over the stiff brim, was crumpled in several places, and seemed to have been attacked by leprosy, notwithstanding the careful hand which smoothed it every morning. Under this hat, which seemed to be in danger of falling off, expanded one of those grotesque and droll faces such as the Chinese alone have been able to invent for their porcelain figures. This huge visage, perforated, like a cook's skimmer, until the holes actually produced shadows, and worked over like a Roman mask, defied all the laws of anatomy. The eye found in it no indications of interior struc- ture. Where there should have been bones the flesh showed only gelatinous levels, and where faces ordinarily present hollows, this one exhibited only flabby protuberances. This grotesque face, crushed together in the shape of a pumpkin, made sorrowful by gray eyes surmounted by two red lines in place of eyebrows, was dominated by a nose a la Don Quixote, as a plain is dominated by a solitary boulder. This nose expressed, as Cervantes may well have observed, an innate tendency for that devotion to great things which degenerates into COUSIN PONS 7 credulity. This ugliness, comical as it was, how- ever, did not excite laughter. The extreme melan- choly, which revealed itself in the pale eyes of this poor man, affected the scoffer and silenced the jest upon his lips. You could not but think immediately that Nature had denied to this worthy man any expression of tenderness, under penalty of making a woman laugh, or of displeasing her. The French are silent before this misfortune, which to them appears the crudest of all, the inability to please ! This man, so disfigured by Nature, was dressed like the poor hangers-on of good society, whom the rich themselves often enough endeavor to resemble. He wore shoes hidden by gaiters, made after the fashion of the Imperial Guard, and which permitted him, no doubt, to wear the same stockings a certain length of time. His pantaloons in black cloth, pre- sented rusty reflections and on the folds white shin- ing lines which, not less than the fashion of their cut, betrayed them to be not less than three years old. The amplitude of these nether garments dis- guised illy enough a leanness rather constitutional than derived from any Pythagorean regime; for the worthy man, endowed with a sensual mouth with thick lips showed, when he smiled, white teeth worthy of a shark. The double-breasted waistcoat, crossed like a shawl, also in black cloth but doubled by a white vest, under which appeared in the third layer the edge of a red knitted doublet, reminded you of the five waistcoats of Garat. The enormous cravat in white muslin of which the portentous tie 8 THE POOR RELATIONS had been invented by a certain beau, to charm the charming women of 1809, extended so far behind the chin that the face seemed to plunge into it as into an abyss. A silken cord, braided to resemble hair, crossed the shirt and protected the watch against an improbable theft. The greenish coat, of a remarkable cleanliness, was of the fashion of at least three years before that of the pan- taloons; but the collar in black velvet and the buttons in white metal, recently renewed, betrayed domestic care brought down to minute particulars. This fashion of wearing the hat on the back of the head, the triple waistcoat, the immense cravat into which the chin plunged, the gaiters, the metal buttons on the greenish coat all these signs of the Imperial fashions harmonized well with the belated perfume of the affectation of the Incroyables, with something indescribably skimped in the folds, meagre and precise in the general effect, which smelt of the school of David and recalled the spindle furniture of Jacob. You recognized readily at first glance a man of good breeding now the prey of some secret vice, or one of those holders of small incomes whose total expenses are so sharply determined by the mediocrity of their revenue that a window broken, a coat torn, or the philanthropic nuisance of a charity suffices to destroy their personal pleasures for a month. Had you been there, you would have asked yourself why a smile animated this grotesque countenance, the habitual expression of which must have been cold and sad, like that of one struggling COUSIN PONS 9 obscurely for the trivial necessities of life. But if you had remarked the maternal precaution with which this singular old man carried an object evidently precious, in his right hand, under the two left flaps of his double coat, as if to protect it from accidental shocks; if you had, above all, noticed the business air which the idle assume when they are charged with a commission, you would have sus- pected him of having found something equivalent, at least, to the lap-dog of a marquise, and of carry- ing it triumphantly, with the emphasized gallantry of an homme-Empire to some charming woman of sixty, who had not yet been able to deny herself the daily visit of her attentive cavalier. Paris is the only city in the world in which you encounter similar spectacles, which make of its boulevards a per- petual drama, played gratuitously by Frenchmen for the benefit of art. Judging by the general structure of this bony man, and in spite of his audacious spencer, you would scarcely have classed him among the Parisian artists whose privilege, similar enough to that of the gamin of Paris, is to re-awaken in the bourgeois imaginations the joys mirobolantes scrumptious since this droll and antique word has been restored to honor. This passer-by was, however, a Grand Prix de Rome, the composer of the prize cantata crowned by the Institute about the time of the re-establishment of the Academy at Rome, in fact, he was M. Sylvain Pons! the author of many celebrated romances warbled by our mothers, of two or three operas 10 THE POOR RELATIONS performed in 1815 and 1816, and of several unpub- lished scores. This worthy man was now finishing his day as leader of an orchestra in a theatre of the boulevards. He was, thanks to his figure, professor of music in several boarding-schools for young ladies, and had no other income than his salary, and his pay for his private lessons. To be giving private lessons at his time of life! How many mysteries behind this poor and unromantic situation! This last of the spencer-wearers carried then upon his person something more than the symbols of the Empire, he bore a great lesson written upon his three waistcoats. He exhibited gratuitously one of those innumerable victims of that fatal and disas- trous system called concours, which rules still in France after one hundred years of existence with- out results. This hotbed for intellect was invented by Poisson de Marigny, the brother to Madame de Pompadour, appointed, about 1746, director of the Beaux-Arts. Endeavor to count on your fingers the men of genius furnished in a century by these laureates! In the first place, never will any effort, administrative or scholastic, replace the miracles of chance or of opportunity to which the world owes its great men. Among all the mysteries of genera- tion, this one is the most inaccessible to our ambitious modern analysis. What should we think of the Egyptians who, as it is said, invented ovens to hatch chickens if they had not immediately given food to these same chickens? And yet this is what is done in France, where they endeavor to produce artists COUSIN PONS II by the hothouse of the concours; for them the sculptor, the painter, the engraver, the musician, obtained by this mechanical process, there is no longer any more concern for them than that which the dandy has for the flowers in his buttonhole last evening. It happens that the man of real talent is Greuze or Watteau, Felicien David or Pagnesi, Gericault or Decamps, Auber or David (d'Angers,) Eugene Delacroix or Meissonier, men caring little for the Grand Prix and who come up in the open ground under the rays of that invisible sun that is called Vocation. Sent by the State to Rome to become a great musician, Sylvain Pons had brought back from there the taste for antiquities and for the beautiful things of art. He was an admirable connoisseur in all of these works, masterpieces of the hand and of the brain, which have been comprehended lately under that popular word bric-^-brac. This son of Euterpe returned then to Paris in 1810, a ferocious collector, possessed of pictures, statuettes, frames of all kinds, sculptures in ivory, in wood, enamels, porcelains, etc., which during his academical sojourn in Rome had absorbed the greater part of his paternal inher- itance as much for the cost of transportation as from the price of their acquisition. He had expended in the same fashion the inheritance derived from his mother during the journey which he made in Italy, after these three official years passed in Rome. He wished to visit at his leisure Venice, Milan, Florence, Bologna, Naples, sojourning for a time in each city, as a dreamer, as a philosopher, with the careless ease of an artist who trusts to his talent for his livelihood, as courtesans trust to their beauty. Pons was happy during this splendid journey, as much so as could be a man full of soul and of delicacy, to whom his ugliness forbids all success with women, according to the hallowed phrase of 1809, and who found the things of life always below (13) 14 THE POOR RELATIONS the level of the ideal type which he had created for himself; but he had accepted this discord between his soul and the realities of life. This sentiment of the beautiful, preserved pure and vivid in his heart, was no doubt the source of those ingenious melo- dies, delicate, full of grace, which made his musical reputation from 1810 to 1814. Every reputation which is founded in France on the vogue, on the fashion, according to the ephemeral follies of Paris, produces men like Rons. There is no other country so exacting in the matter of great things and so dis- dainfully indulgent for the little ones. If Rons soon to be drowned in floods of German harmony and in the productions of Rossini was still in 1824 an agreeable musician, known by a few late romantic songs, we may imagine what he had become in 1831 ! Thus in 1844, the year in which commences the only drama of this obscure life, Sylvain Rons had attained to the value of an antediluvian quaver; the music dealers were com- pletely ignorant of his existence, although he com- posed, for very moderate remuneration, the scores for certain pieces at his own and at neighboring theatres. This worthy man, moreover, was justly appreci- ative of the famous composers of our epoch; a fine performance of a beautiful passage made him weep; but his religion never arrived at that point where it bordered upon mania, as it did with the Krieslers of Hoffmann; he allowed none of it to appear on the surface. He enjoyed it within himself, after the COUSIN PONS 15 manner of the hashish-eaters, or of the Theriakis. The gift of admiration, of comprehension, the one faculty by means of which an ordinary man becomes the brother of a great poet, is so rare in Paris, where all ideas are like the transient travelers in an inn, that for this alone we should give to Pons our re- spectful esteem. The fact of his own lack of suc- cess may seem exaggerated, but he candidly admitted his weakness on the score of harmony; he had ne- glected the study of counterpoint; and the modern orchestration, so immeasurably developed, appeared to him impossible at the very moment when by fresh study he might have been able to have maintained himself among the modern composers, to have be- come not a Rossini, but an Herold. However, he found in the pleasures of the collector such lively compensation for his failure to acquire glory that if he had been compelled to choose between the pos- session of his curiosities and the name of Rossini would it be believed? Pons would have decided for his dear cabinet. The old musician practised the maxim of Chenavard, that learned collector of price- less engravings, who pretended that no one could have any pleasure in contemplating a Ruysdael, a Hobbema, a Holbein, a Raphael, a Murillo, a Greuze, a Sebastian del Piombo, a Giorgione, an Albert Durer, unless the picture had cost him no more than fifty francs. Pons never allowed himself a purchase over the cost of one hundred francs; and if he paid for an object fifty francs, that object must be worth at least three thousand. The finest thing in the world, 16 THE POOR RELATIONS if it cost three hundred francs, did not exist for him. Rare indeed had been his bargains, but he possessed the three elements of the collector's success: the legs of the deer, the leisure of an idler, and the patience of a Jew. This system, practised during forty years, at Rome as at Paris, had borne fruit. After having expended, since his return from Rome, about two thousand francs a year, Rons now concealed from every eye a collection of masterpieces of every species, which amounted in his catalogue to the fabulous number of 1907. From 1811 to 1 8 16, during his wanderings about Paris, he had found for ten francs things that would sell in the present day for one thousand or twelve hundred. There were pictures selected among the forty-five thousand paintings which are annually of- fered for sale in the auction rooms at Paris, porcelains of Sevres, pate iendre, brought from the Auvergnats, those satellites of the Black Band who brought back in their hand-carts the marvels of France-Pompa- dour. In fact, he had scraped together relics of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, doing justice to the men of wit and of genius of the French school, the great unknown, the Lepautres, Lavallee-Pous- sins, etc., who had created the style of Louis XV., the style of Louis XVI., and whose works supply to-day the pretended originality of our modern artist, who may be seen forever bending over the treasures in the Cabinet des Estampes, in order to produce new designs by making clever copies. Rons owed COUSIN PONS 17 many of his specimens to exchanges, that source of ineffable happiness to collectors! The pleasure of buying curiosities is only the second; the first, is to barter for them. Pons had been the first to collect snuff-boxes and miniatures. Without fame in the bric-a" -brac-ology, for he never haunted auction rooms and he never showed himself in the shops of the great merchants, Pons was ignorant of the venal value of his treasures. The late Dusommerard had, indeed, endeavored to establish relations with the musician; but that prince of bric-a'-brac died without ever having been able to penetrate into the Pons museum, the only one which could have compared with the celebrated collection of Sauvageot. Between Pons and M. Sauvageot there were certain similarities. M. Sau- vageot, musician like Pons, like him without much fortune, had followed the same methods, by the same means, from the same love of art, with the same hatred for those illustrious rich who collect treasures for the purpose of competing skilfully in the markets with the dealers. Like his rival, his competitor, his antagonist in the quest for all these marvels of handicraft, for the prodigies of workman- ship, Pons felt in his heart an insatiable avarice, the love of a lover for a beautiful mistress, and a resale in the halls of the rue des Jeuneurs under the ham- mer of an auctioneer seemed to him a crime of lese- bric-a-brac. He kept his collection to enjoy it at all hours, for the souls created to admire great works have the sublime faculty of the true lover; they 1 8 THE POOR RELATIONS experience as much enjoyment to-day as yesterday, for them there is no satiety and masterpieces are happily ever young. Thus, the object held so pa- ternally under the tails of his coat was undoubtedly one of those treasure-troves which one carries away with what ardor, O amateursl you alone can truly know! At the first outline of this biographical sketch, every one will cry out : " Why, in spite of his ugli- ness, this is the happiest man on earth !" In fact, no ennui, no spleen, can resist the soothing moxa which is brought to the soul in giving it a hobby. All you who can no longer drink of that which in all time has been called the cup of pleasure, take up the task of collecting something or other, no matter what there are even collectors of posters ! and you will find you will get back all your ingots of joy in small change. A hobby, a mania, is pleasure transformed into the shape of an idea ! Neverthe- less, do not envy the worthy Pons, this sentiment, like others of its kind, is based on error. This man of innate delicacy, whose soul lived by its unwearying admiration for the magnificence of human workmanship) that noble struggle with the forces of Nature was the slave of that one of the seven capital sins which God should punish the least severely. Pons was a gourmand. His lack of fortune and his passion for bric-a-brac condemned him to an ascetic diet so abhorrent to his fine taste, that the old celibate promptly solved the question by going to dine daily with his friends. Now, under COUSIN PONS 19 the Empire, there existed, much more than in our days, a worship for celebrated people, perhaps be- cause of their small number and their lack of politi- cal pretension. One became a poet, a writer, a musician, at so little cost ! Pons, then regarded as the probable rival of the Nicolos of the Pae'rs, and of the Bertons, received, therefore, so many invitations that he was obliged to enter them in a memorandum book, as the lawyers record their cases. In his quality of artist he offered copies of his songs to all his amphitryons. He touched the piano in their houses, he presented them with boxes at Feydeau, the theatre to which he was attached ; he organized concerts for them ; he even played sometimes on the violin in the houses of his relatives in getting up little balls. The handsomest men in France were in those days exchanging sabre cuts with theyn handsomest men of the Coalition ; the ugliness of Pons was therefore considered " original " in accord- ance with the grand law promulgated by Moliere in the famous couplet of filiante. When he had rendered some service to some fine lady he some- times heard himself called a charming man, but his experience of happiness never went beyond the hearing of the words. 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 extravagantly, procuring delicacies, unbottling their best wines, solicitous about the dessert, the coffees, the liqueurs, and giving him of their best, as 20 THE POOR RELATIONS one did under the Empire, when many households imitated the splendors of the kings, the queens, the princes with which Paris was then crowded. It was then very much the fashion to play at royalty, as to-day it is to play at parliament, in creating crowds of societies, with presidents, vice-presidents and secretaries ; societies for the linen-trade, for the wine-trade, for the silk-trade, agricultural societies, industrial societies, etc. It has even been pushed to the extent of seeking out social diseases that we may organize their reformers into societies ! A stomach whose education has been thus conducted, reacts necessarily upon the moral constitution and corrupts it through the high culinary knowledge which it has acquired. Sensuality, lurking in every fold of the heart, speaks there with sovereign voice, subverts the will, the sense of honor, demands its gratification at any price. No one has ever yet depicted the exactions of the human palate, they escape literary criticism through the sheer necessity of living ; but no one has computed the number of those whom the table has ruined. In this respect, the table in Paris is the rival of the courtesan ; it is, moreover, the receipt of which she is the expendi- ture. When, from the estate of perpetual guest, Pons had arrived, through the decline of his reputa- tion as artist, at the estate of sponging guest, it was impossible for him to pass from these well- served tables to the Spartan broth of a forty-sous restaurant. Alas ! he shivered in reflecting that his self-respect demanded such great sacrifices, and he COUSIN PONS 21 felt himself capable of the utmost meanness in order to continue to live well, to enjoy the luxuries of the sea- son, and in fine to gobble vulgar but expressive word the delicious little dishes. Like a marauding bird fly- ing away with a full crop and warbling an air by way of thanks, Pons had come to feel a certain pleasure in thus living at the cost of society, which required of him what ? Jest and amusement. Accustomed, like all bachelors who hate their own homes and live in the houses of others, to these forms, to these social grimaces, which replace in the social world true sentiments, he made use of compliments as he did of small change, and with respect to persons he was satisfied to take them as they were ticketed, without examining too closely into their real value. This not intolerable state of affairs lasted during ten more years ; but what years ! It was like a rainy autumn. During all this time, Pons managed to keep his gratuitous place at table by rendering himself necessary in all the houses in which he dined. He set foot in the fatal path of executing a multitude of commissions, of supplying the place of the porters and servants on very many occasions. Often employed to make purchases, he became the honest and innocent spy circulating from one family to another ; but he received no thanks for so many errands and so many meannesses. " Pons is a good fellow," they said. " He does not know what to do with his time, he is only too happy to trot about for us and then what else would he do ?" 22 THE POOR RELATIONS Soon, however, the fatal chill that the old man dif- fuses around him began to manifest itself. This iciness extends, it produces its effect on the moral tempera- ture, above all, when the old man is ugly and poor. Is that not to be triply old ? It was the winter of life, the winter of the red nose, of wan cheeks, of all kinds of numbness ! From 1836 to 1843, Pons saw himself but seldom invited. Far from seeking this parasite, each family accepted him as they accepted their taxes; they no longer held him of any account, not even for the real services which he rendered them. The families among which the poor man circulated, all of them without any respect for art, worshipping only ma- terial results, prized only that which they had gained since 1830 fortunes or eminent social positions. Therefore, Pons, being without sufficient dignity of mind or manners to inspire that awe which wit or genius imposes on the bourgeois soul, had naturally ended with becoming less than nothing, without, how- ever becoming altogether despised. Although he suf- fered in this world of cruel sufferings like all timid people, he bore his sufferings silently. Then, too, he had become accustomed by degrees to repress his feelings, to make of his heart a sanctuary into which he could retire. This phenomenon many superficial people translate as egotism. The resemblance is sufficiently great between the solitary soul and the egotist for the evil speakers to seem to have reason on their side as against the man of heart, above all, at Paris, where no one observes carefully, where everything is rapid as a flood, where everything passes like the Ministries! Cousin Pons was thus found guilty, under an (23) 24 THE POOR RELATIONS indictment of egotism drawn retrospectively against him, for the world always ends by condemning those whom it accuses. Do we not realize how much an unmerited discredit overwhelms the timid natures? Who will ever paint the unhappiness of timidity! This situation, which became more and more aggra- vated from day to day, will explain the sadness stamped upon the countenance of this poor musician who lived by a long series of servile surrenders. But the abject meannesses which every passion / exacts are so many bonds in themselves; the more l^- a-passion demands the more it binds you; it turns all these sacrifices into an ideal negative treasure in which man sees immense riches. After enduring the patronizingly insolent regard of some rich bour- geois, stiff with stupidity, Pons tasted like a ven- geance the glass of port wine, the quail au gratin, which he had commenced to discuss, saying to him- self: " It is not too dear! " To the eye of the moralist there may be found, however, in this life, certain extenuating circum- stances. In fact, man exists only through some species of satisfaction. A man without a passion, a just man made perfect, is a monster, a demi-angel who has not yet his wings. The angels only have heads in the Catholic mythology. Here below, on the earth, the just is the wearisome Grandisson for whom the Venus of the slums herself is without sex. Now, excepting certain rare and vulgar adventures during his travels in Italy, where the climate was COUSIN PONS 25 without doubt the cause of his success, Pons had never seen a woman smile upon him. Many men have this luckless destiny. Pons was born out of time; his father and his mother had obtained him in their old age, and he bore the stigmata of this un- seasonable birth in his cadaverous complexion, which seemed to have been contracted in the jars of alcohol in which science preserves certain extraordinary foetuses. This artist, endowed with a tender, dreamy, delicate soul, forced to accept the character imposed upon him by his outward appearance, despaired of ever being loved. Celibacy was, therefore, with him less a choice than a necessity. Gluttony, the sin of virtuous monks, tendered to him her arms; he threw himself into them, as he had thrown himself into the adoration of works of arts and into his wor- ship of music. Good living and bric-a-brac were for him the small change for a woman; as to music, that was his profession, and where can we find a man who loves the trade by which he lives! In the long run, it is of profession as it is of marriage. You feel of them only the inconveniences. Brillat-Savarin has justified, from conviction, the art of gastronomy; but perhaps he has not suffi- ciently insisted on the real pleasure which man finds at table. Digestion, which employs the forces of the human body, constitutes an internal combat which among the gastrolaters is equivalent to the very highest enjoyment of love. There is felt such a vast development of vital capacity, that the brain annuls itself in the interests of that secondary brain 26 THE POOR RELATIONS placed in the diaphragm, and intoxication ensues from the very inertia of all the faculties. The boa- constrictors gorged with buffalo are so very drunken that they allow themselves to be killed. After forty years, what man is there who dares to go to work after his dinner? For this reason all great men have been sober. Sick people, in convalescing from a serious illness, and to whom a selected nour- ishment is carefully doled out, have often observed a species of gastric inebriation produced by a single chicken wing. The wise Pons, all of whose enjoy- ments were concentrated in the play of his stomach, found himself often in the situation of these conva- lescents; he exacted from good living all the sensa- tions it was capable of bestowing, and he had so far obtained them daily. No one dares to bid farewell to a fixed habit. Many a suicide has stopped short on the threshold of death by the recollection of the cafe where he played his nightly game of dominoes.^ In 1835, chance avenged Pons for the indifference of the fair sex, it gave him what is familiarly called, a staff for his old age. This good man, old from his birth, found in friendship a prop for his life, he con- tracted the only marriage which society permitted him he espoused a man, an old man, a musician like himself. Were it not for La Fontaine's divine fable, this sketch might have had for title, " The Two Friends." But would not that have been a literary outrage, a profanation before which every true writer would recoil? That masterpiece of our fable-maker, at once the disclosure of his soul and COUSIN PONS 27 the history of his dreams, should have the eternal privilege of this title. The page on which the poet has engraved those words, THE TWO FRIENDS, is one of the sacred properties, a temple in which each generation will enter respectfully and which the entire universe will visit so long as the art of printing endures. The friend of Pons was a professor of the piano whose life and whose inclinations sympathized so well with his own that he said he had known him too late for happiness; for their acquaintance, begun at the distribution of prizes in a boarding school, only dated from 1834. Never, perhaps, did two souls find themselves so similar in that ocean of human life which took its rise, against the will of God, in the terrestrial paradise. These two musi- cians became in a short time each a necessity for the other. Reciprocally confidential one with the other, they were in a week like two brothers. Finally, Schmucke no more believed that there could exist a Pons than Pons was able to conceive , that there was a Schmucke. This alone will suffice to depict these two worthy souls, but every intelli- gence does not equally appreciate the brevity of syn- thesis. A slight demonstration, therefore, becomes necessary for the benefit of the incredulous. This pianist, like all pianists, was a German, German like the great Liszt, and the great Mendels- sohn, German like Steibelt, German like Mozart and Dusseck, German like Meyer, German like Dcehler, German like Thalberg, like Dreschok, like Hiller, 28 THE POOR RELATIONS like Leopold Mayer, like Crammer, like Zimmer- mann and Kalkbrenner, like Herz, Woe'tz, Karr, Wolff, Pixis, Clara Wieck in short, all Germans. Although a great composer, Schmucke could only point the way, so much did his character lack the audacity necessary to a man of genius to manifest himself in music. The simple naivete of many Germans is not continual, it comes to a stop; that which remains to them after a certain age is taken, as one takes the water from a canal, from the spring of one's youth, and they use it to fertilize their suc- cess in all things, science, art or fortune, as it serves them to escape distrust. In France, some subtle people replace this German innocence by the solidity of the Parisian grocer. But Schmucke had kept all his child-like simplicity, just as Pons carried on his person, unawares, relics of the Empire. This genuine and noble German was at once both the play and the audience, he made his music for himself. He lived in Paris as a nightingale lives in its forest, and he there sang, alone of his kind, during twenty years, until the moment when, meeting Pons, he met his other self see A Daughter of Eve. Pons and Schmucke had both of them in abundance in the heart and in the character those childlike sentimentalities which distinguish the Germans, such as the passion for flowers, as the worship of all natural effects, which led them to set glass globes in their gardens in order that they might see in miniature the great landscape which they had before their eyes; like that predisposition for discovery COUSIN PONS 29 which will carry a German savant one hundred leagues in his slippers to find a truth which looks at him laughing, all the while seated on the edge of the well under the jessamine of his own court-yard: or, in short, that imperious need of attributing psychi- cal significance to the trifles of creation which pro- duces the inexplicable works of Jean-Paul Richter, the printed intoxications of Hoffmann, and the parapets in folio which Germany sets up around the most simple questions, excavated into abysses, at the bottom of which nothing is to be found but a German. Catholics both of them, going to the mass together, they fulfilled their religious duties like children who never have anything to reveal to their confessors. They believed firmly that music, the language of Heaven, was to ideas and sentiments that which ideas and sentiments are to speech, and they conversed interminably on this system, in replying one to the other by orgies of music, demonstrating to themselves their own convictions, after the fashion of all lovers. Schmucke was as absent-minrlpd as Pons was intent? If fonswas a collector, Schmucke was a dreamer; this one studied beautiful moral things, the other saved the beautiful material ones. Pons saw and bought a porcelain cup while Schmucke was blowing his nose in thinking over some theme of Rossini, of Bellini, of Beetho- ven, of Mozart, and hunting through the world of sentiment to find the origin or the rejoinder to this musical phrase. Schmucke, whose economies were effected at hazard; Pons, prodigal by his besetting 30 THE POOR RELATIONS passion, arrived one and the other at the same result nothing in the purse on the St. Sylvester of every year. Without this friendship Rons might have died of his chagrin ; but as soon as he had another heart into which to discharge his own, life became bear- able to him. The first time he confided his troubles to Schmucke, the worthy German counselled him to live as he did himself, on bread and on cheese, in his own house, rather than go abroad to eat dinners for for which he was made to pay so dearly. Alas ! Pons dared not avow to Schmucke that within him the heart and the stomach were enemies, that the stomachdejuanded that which caused the heart to suffer, that he was obliged to have, at any price, a good dinner to relish, just as a man of gallantry requires a mistress to torment. In course of time Schmucke came to understand Pons, for he was too much of a German to have the quickness of obser- vation which the French enjoy, and he loved the poor Pons only the better for it. Nothing strength- ens friendship more among two friends than for one to feel himself superior to the other. An angel would have had nothing to say in seeing Schmucke, when he rubbed his hands at the moment in which he discovered the intensity which the love of good eating had developed in his friend. In fact, the next day the good German added to their break- fast certain dainties which he had bought himself, and he took pains to have every day something new for his friend ; for ever since their union they COUSIN PONS 31 breakfasted every day together in their own lodgings. It would argue little knowledge of Paris to believe for a moment that the two friends had escaped Parisian ridicule, which has never respected any- thing. Schmucke and Pons when they married their wealth and their poverty, had conceived the economical idea of lodging together, and they divided between them the rent of an apartment very un- equally divided, situated in a quiet house, in the quiet Rue de Normandie, in the Marais. As they often went out together and traversed the same boulevards, side by side, the idlers of the quarter had christened them the two Nut-crackers. This - / nickname relieves us from the necessity of giving A here the portrait of Schmucke, who was to Pons f what the nurse of Niobe, the famous statue of thex Vatican, is to the Venus of the Tribune. Madame Cibot, the concierge of this house, was the pivot on which the domestic arrangements of the two Nut-crackers turned ; but she plays such an important part in the drama of their double exist- ence that it is better to reserve her portrait until the moment of her entrance on this scene. That which now remains to relate of the moral con- stitution of these two beings, is that which is precisely the most difficult to bring to the comprehension of the ninety-nine one-hundredths of the read- ers in this forty-seventh year of the nineteenth century, probably because of the prodigious finan- cial development which has followed the establish- ment of railroads. It is a very little thing, and yet it is a great deal. In fact, it is necessary to give an idea of the excessive delicacy of these two hearts. Let us borrow a figure of speech from the railway, if only in repayment of the loans they obtain from us. To-day the trains, in dashing along the rails, grind into the iron imperceptible grains of sand. Introduce one of these grains of sand, invisible to the traveler, into his kidneys, and he endures the pains of that frightful malady, the gravel ; possibly dies of it. Very well ; that which for our society, rush- ing along its metallic way with the rapidity of a locomotive, is the invisible grain of sand of which it takes no notice this grain, perpetually ground into the fibres of these two beings on every occa- sion, was to them like a gravel of the heart. Full of exceeding tenderness for the sorrows of others, each of them mourned over his own powerlessness, and in the matter of their own feelings, both had the exquisite sensitiveness of the invalid. Old age, 3 (33) 34 THE POOR RELATIONS the continued spectacle of the Parisian drama, nothing had hardened these two souls, fresh, child- like and pure. T^he longer these^Jwo,betn~gs~went their way -the ..keener weTejEHeiiLinward sufferings. Alas ! it is ever thus with the chaste natures, the tranquil thinkers, the true poets, who have never fallen into any excesses. Since the reunion of these two old men, their oc- cupations, which were very much alike, had assumed that fraternal sort of gait which distinguishes in Paris the hackney-coach horses. Rising at seven in the morning, winter and summer, after their break- fast they went to give their lessons in the boarding- schools, where, on occasions, each supplied the other's place. Toward midday Pons went to his theatre, when there happened to be a rehearsal, and he gave to idleness every moment of his leisure. In the evening the two friends met at the theatre, where Pons had secured employment for Schmucke, in this wise : At the time when Pons first met Schmucke, he had just obtained, without seeking it, that marshal's baton of all unrecognized composers, the conductor's staff, as leader of an orchestra! Thanks to Comte Popinot, then Minister, this place was secured for the poor musician at the moment when this bour- geois hero of the revolution of July gave the man- agement of the theatre to one of those old friends for whom a parvenue blushes when, rolling in his carriage, he perceives in Paris, some companion of his youth, shabby, seedy, out at elbows, wearing a COUSIN PONS 35 coat from which the color has fled, and with his nose set for affairs too lofty for his fugitive capital. This friend, named Gaudissart, formerly commercial trav- eler, had been at one time very useful in contributing to the success of the great house of Popinot. Pop- inot, now a count and peer of France, after having been twice Minister, never forgot THE ILLUSTRIOUS GAUDISSART ! On the contrary, he wished to give the traveler an opportunity to replenish his ward- robe and refill his purse; for politics, the vanities of the citizen court, had in no wise corrupted the heart of the former druggist. Gaudissart, always crazy about women, asked for the lease of a theatre which had lately failed, and the Minister, in giving it to him, had taken care to send him a few old amateurs of the fair sex, sufficiently rich to create a profitable stock company, interested chiefly in the lower limbs of the performers. Pons, a parasite of the Hotel Popinot, was a condition of this license. The Gaudissart company, which, moreover, made its fortune, conceived in 1834, the intention of real- izing on the boulevard this great idea an opera for the people. The music for the ballets and for the spectacular pieces required a passable leader of the orchestra, and one who was something of a com- poser. The management to which the Gaudissart company succeeded had been too long on the point of failure to possess a copyist. Pons thus introduced Schmucke into the theatre, in the capacity of super- intendent of scores, an obscure occupation which nevertheless required serious musical knowledge. 36 THE POOR RELATIONS Schmucke, under Rons' advice, made some arrange- ment with the chief of this service at the Opera- Comique, by which he avoided the mechanical details. The association of Pons and Schmucke had marvelous results. Schmucke, like all Germans, was very strong in harmony, and attended carefully to the instrumentation of the scores for which Pons supplied the songs. When the connoisseurs admired some fresh composition which served as an accom- paniment to two or three popular pieces, they ex- plained them to themselves by the word progress, without searching for the authors. Pons and Schmucke were eclipsed in their own glory, as cer- tain people have been drowned in their own bath- tubs. At Paris, especially since 1830, no one arrives at eminence without pushing, quibuscumque vtis, and pushing very strongly, through a frightful crowd of competitors; for this was required, naturally, great strength in the loins, and the two friends had at heart that gravel which hinders all ambitious actions. Ordinarily, Pons presented himself at the orches- tra of his theatre at about eight o'clock, the hour at which are given those pieces in popular favor of which the overtures and the accompaniments require the tyranny of the leader's baton. This easy arrangement exists in most of the smaller theatres ; but Pons was allowed in this respect even more freedom, because of the great disinterestedness he showed in his relations with the management. Moreover, Schmucke supplied Pons' place, if neces- sary. In course of time the position of Schmucke COUSIN PONS 37 in the orchestra became a settled one. The Illus- trious Gaudissart had recognized, without saying anything about it, the value and usefulness of Rons' assistant. The introduction into the orchestra of a piano, as at the grand theatres, had become obliga- tory. This piano, played gratuitously by Schmucke, was established near the desk of the leader of the orchestra, close to which sat the volunteer super- numerary. When they got to know this good German, without ambition or pretension, all the musicians accepted him heartily. The management, for a moderate stipend, put Schmucke in charge of those instruments which are not usually represented in the orchestras of the theatres of the boulevard, and which are often necessary, such as the piano, the viole d 'amour, the English horn, the violoncello, the harp, the castanets for the cachucha, the bells, the Saxophone, etc. The Germans, though they may not know how to play the glorious instruments of liberty, have a natural gift for playing on the instruments of music. The two old artists, extremely beloved at the theatre, lived there like philosophers. They had shut their eyes to the inherent evils of the company in which the corps de ballet mingles with the actors and actresses, one of the worst combinations that the necessity of drawing good houses has created for the torment of directors, authors and musicians. A sincere respect for others and for himself had won the general esteem for the good and modest Rons. Moreover, in every sphere a clear life and a spotless 189960 38 THE POOR RELATIONS honesty command a sort of admiration even from the worst hearts. At_Earisa. noble virtue has the success of a large dizhuond, of _a-xar.e^cyriosity. Not an actor, not an author, not a dancer, however bold she might be, would have permitted the least jest or the smallest trick against Pons or his friend. Rons showed himself sometimes in the foyer, but Schmucke knew only the subterranean passage which led from the exterior of the theatre to the orchestra. Between the acts, when he assisted at a represen- tation, the good old German ventured to look about him at the house and sometimes question the first flute a young man born at Strasburg of a German family of Kehl concerning the eccentric personages who nearly always garnish the regions of the pros- cenium. Little by little the childlike imagination of Schmucke, whose social education was undertaken by this flute, admitted the fabulous existence of the lorette,the possibilities of marriages in the thirteenth arrondissement, the prodigalities of a suggestive subject, and the contraband commerce of the box- openers. The innocencies of vice appeared to this worthy man the last word of Babylonian iniquity, and he smiled at them as he would have done at Chinese arabesques. The knowing ones will readily understand that Pons and Schmucke were exploited, to use a phrase of the day; but that which they lost in money they gained in consideration and good will. After the success of a ballet which commenced the rapid fortune of the Gaudissart company, the directors presented Pons with a group in silver, COUSIN PONS 39 attributed to Benvenuto Cellini, the astounding price of which had been a topic of conversation in the green room. It was an affair of twelve hundred francs! The poor, honest man wished to return this gift! Gaudissart had the greatest pains to make him keep it. "Ah, if we could only find," said he to his asso- ciate, " actors of that stripe!" This double life, so calm in appearance, was troubled solely by the vice to which Pons sacrificed this ferocious necessity of dining abroad. Thus, whenever Schmucke chanced to be at home when Pons was dressing, the good German bewailed this fatal habit. " Und subbose eet mayg you vat," he sometimes cried, with his Teutonic accent. And Schmucke brooded over schemes to cure his friend of this degrading vice, for two friends are endowed, in the moral order of things, with that perfection to which is brought the sense of smell in dogs; they scent the cares of their friends, they divine the causes, and they are preoccupied with them. Pons, who wore always on the little finger of his left hand a diamond ring, tolerated under the Em- pire, but now considered ridiculous; Pons, far too much of a troubadour, and too much of a French- man, gave no sign on his physiognomy of the divine serenity which tempered the frightful ugliness of Schmucke. The German had recognized in the melancholy expression on the face of his friend the 40 THE POOR RELATIONS increasing difficulties which rendered this trade of the parasite more and more painful. In fact, in October, 1844, the number of houses where Pons dined had become naturally very much restricted. The poor chief of orchestra, reduced to the rounds of his own relations, had, as we shall see, extended beyond all bounds the meaning of the word family. The ancient laureate was first cousin to the first wife of M. Camusot, the rich silk merchant of the Rue des Bourdonnais, a demoiselle Pons, sole heir- ess of one of the famous Pons Brothers, embroi- derers to the Court, a house in which the father and mother of the musician had been sleeping-partners, after having founded it before the Revolution of 1789, and which was purchased by M. Rivet in 1815, from the father of the first Madame Camusot. This Camusot, having retired from business for the last ten years, was, in 1844, member of the General Council on Manufactures, Deputy, etc. Taken into friendship by the tribe of Camusot, the honest Pons considered himself as cousin of the children which the silk merchant had had- by his second marriage, although they were in fact nothing whatever to him, not even connections. The second Madame Camusot being a demoiselle Cardot, Pons 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 society not less important than that of the Camusots. Cardot, the notary, brother of the sec- ond Madame Camusot, had married a demoiselle COUSIN PONS 41 Chiffreville. The celebrated family of the Chiffre- villes, the head of all chemical products, was united with the wholesale drug trade of which the cock of the roost was for a long time M. Anselme Popinot, whom the Revolution of July had launched, as we know, into the very heart of the most dynastic poli- tics. And Pons, hanging to the skirts of the Cam- usots and the Cardots, came into the family of the Chiffrevilles, and from thence into that of the Popinots always in his character of a cousin of cousins. This slight sketch of the latest relations of the old musician will enable the reader to understand how it was that in 1844 he was received on familiar terms; first, in the house of M. le Comte Popinot, peer of France, formerly Minister of Agriculture and of Commerce; secondly, in the house of M. Cardot, retired notary and now Mayor and Deputy of an arrondissement of Paris; third, in that of the old M. Camusot, deputy member of the Municipal Council of Paris and of the Council-General of Manufactures, now in expectation of a peerage; fourth, in that of M. Camusot de Marville, son of the first wife, and therefore the true, the only real cousin to Pons, although once removed. This Camusot,who, to distinguish himself from his father and his half-brother, had added to his name that of his estate of de Marville, was, in 1844, pre- sident of chamber of the Cour Royale of Paris. The former notary, Cardot, having married his daughter to his successor, named Berthier, Pons 42 THE POOR RELATIONS being part of the business, as it were, managed to lay hold of that dinner also " before a notary," as he said. Such was the bourgeois firmament which Rons called his family, and in which he had so painfully maintained his rights to a knife and fork. Of these ten houses, that one in which the artist quite expected to be the most welcome, the household of the President Camusot, was the object of his greatest care. But, alas! the president's wife, daughter of the late sieur Thirion, usher to the Cabinet of the Kings Louis XVIII. and Charles X., had never treated very kindly her husband's half- cousin. In endeavoring to soften this terrible rela- tion, Pons had lost much time, for after having given gratuitous lessons to Mademoiselle Camusot he had found it impossible to make a musician of that rather florid young lady. Now, Pons, with the precious object in his hand, was at this moment directing his course toward the house of his cousin, the presi- dent, where he used to fancy himself, on entering, in the Tuileries, so great an effect did the solemn" green draperies, the hangings of Carmelite brown, the moquette carpets, the severe furniture of this apartment, in which breathed the most severely magisterial air, act upon his mind. Strangely enough, he felt at his ease in the Hotel Popinot, in the Rue Basse-du-Rempart, doubtless because of the works of art which he found there; for the former Minister had, since his entrance into political life, contracted the mania for collecting choice things, probably in opposition to the science of politics, which collects, secretly, the vilest actions. (43) 44 THE POOR RELATIONS The President de Marville lived in the Rue de Hanovre, in a house bought by his wife within the last ten years, after the death of her father and mother, the sieur and dame Thirion, who had left her about one hundred and fifty thousand francs of their savings. This house, whose aspect on the street where it faces north is sufficiently gloomy, enjoys a southern exposure at the back on a court- yard beyond which extends a rather handsome garden. The magistrate occupied the whole of the first floor, which, under Louis XV., had been the residence of one of the greatest financiers of the time. The second floor being leased to a rich old lady, the whole house presented a tranquil and honorable appearance quite in keeping with its official character. The remains of the magnificent estate of Marville, to the acquisition of which the magistrate had devoted his savings of twenty years, as well as the fortune derived from his mother, com- prised the chateau, a splendid monument such as may still be met with in Normandy, and a good farm which brought in twelve thousand francs a year. A park of one hundred hectares surrounded the chateau. This luxury, princely in this day, cost the president one thousand crowns, so that his lands did not bring him in more than nine thousand francs in hand, as they say. These nine thousand francs and his salary gave to the president an income of some twenty thousand francs all told, apparently a sufficient sum, especially as he expected the half of his father's property, seeing that he was the only COUSIN PONS 45 child of the first marriage; but the life of Paris and the demands of their official position had obliged M. and Madame Marville to expend almost the whole of their revenues. Up to 1834 they were pressed for money. This inventory of their property will explain why Mademoiselle de Marville, a young lady of twenty- three years of age, was not yet married, in spite of her one hundred thousand francs of dot, and in spite also of the tempting bait of her future expectations, skil- fully and frequently, but fruitlessly presented. For at least five years Cousin Pons had been listening to the mournful complaints of the president's wife, who saw all the deputies married, the new judges of the tribunals already fathers of families, and who had vainly displayed the apparent prospects of Mademoiselle de Marville before the uncharmed eyes of the young Viscount Popinot, eldest son of the great chief of the wholesale druggists, for whose especial benefit, according to the envious souls of the Quartier des Lombards, quite as much as for that of the younger branch, the Revolution of July had been brought about. When Pons reached the Rue de Choiseul, and was about to turn into the Rue de Hanovre, he ex- perienced that inexplicable emotion which is the torment of pure consciences, which inflicts on them the terror felt by the greatest scoundrels at sight of a gendarme, and which in this case was caused entirely by the doubt as to how he might be re- ceived by Madame la Presidente. This grain of 46 THE POOR RELATIONS sand which was tearing the fibres of his heart, had never yet worn itself smooth ; its angles, on the contrary, grew only more and more cutting, and the inhabitants of this house incessantly polished and sharpened them still further. In fact, the small ac- count that the Camusots made of their cousin Pons, his cheapness in the bosom of the family, reacted upon the domestics, who, without manifestations of actual dislike toward him, considered him as a species of pauper. The capital enemy of poor Pons was a certain Madeleine Vivet, an old maid, lean and dry, the femme de chambre of Madame C. de Marville and of her daughter. This Madeleine, in spite of her pimpled complexion, and perhaps because of these pimples, and of the viperous sinuosities of her figure, had taken into her head to become Madame Pons. She displayed vainly before the eyes of the old celi- bate her twenty thousand francs of savings, but Pons declined the pimpled happiness. Therefore, this Dido of the ante-chamber, who wished to be- come the cousin of her masters, played the most spiteful tricks upon the poor old musician. When she heard his step on the stairs, she would exclaim shrilly, "Ah! here comes the sponger, " trying to make him hear the words. If she waited at table in the absence of the footman, she would pour very little wine and a great deal of water into the glass of her victim, giving him, at the same time, the difficult task of getting it safely to his lips without spilling a drop, full as it was to overflowing. She would COUSIN PONS 47 forget to serve the worthy man until reminded of it by her mistress and in what a tone ! the poor cousin blushed at it and then she would spill the sauce on his clothes. It was, in short, the warfare of an inferior, knowing herself unpunishable, against an unfortunate superior. As housekeeper and lady's maid, Madeleine had served M. and Madame Camusot since their marriage. She had seen her employers in the penury of their early life in the provinces, when Monsieur Camusot had been Judge of the Tribunal at Alengon ; she had helped them to live when he was President of the Tribunal of Mantes. M. Camusot came to Paris in 1828, and was appointed juge d' instruction. She was thus too close to the family not to have some motives for revenge. This desire to play her proud and ambitious mistress the ill turn of becoming her master's cousin, cov- ered one of those sullen hatreds engendered by the gravel which causes avalanches. "Madame, here's your Monsieur Pons, spencer and all," cried Madeleine to the president's wife. " He might at least tell me by what process he has managed to keep it for the last twenty-five years!" 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 inform me with so much intelli- gence, Madeleine, that I have no time to decide on anything," said the president's wife. " Madame, Jean is out, I was alone, Monsieur 48 THE POOR RELATIONS Rons rang, I opened the door to him, and as he is almost like one of the household, I could not prevent him from following me; he is out there, taking off his spencer." "My poor kitten," said the president's wife to her daughter, "we are caught! We shall have to dine at home. Come," she added, seeing the piteous face of her dear little kitten, " shall we get rid of him once for all?" "O, the poor man," answered Mademoiselle Camusot, " deprive him of one of his dinners!" The little salon here resounded with the fictitious coughing of a man who wishes to thus say " I hear you." " Very well, let him come in," said Madame Cam- usot to Madeleine, shrugging her shoulders. "You have come so early, cousin," said Cecile Camusot, with a little malicious air, "that you have surprised us just as my mother was going to dress." Cousin Pons, who had not failed to see the move- ment of the shoulders of the president's wife, was so cruelly hit that he found no compliment ready, and was fain to content himself with this profound remark : "You are always charming, my little cousin!" Then turning toward the mother with a bow : "Dear cousin," he added, "you will not, I am sure, blame me for coming a little earlier than usual. I bring you something which you did me the pleasure to ask for" COUSIN PONS 49 ~' And the luckless Pons, who literally sawed in two the president's wife and Cecile every time that he called them "cousin," drew from the side-pocket of his coat a ravishing little oblong box made of mahaleb wood and exquisitely carved. "Ah, I had forgotten it," said the president's wife, drily. \yas not thift fy^|amation atrocious! Was it not^ calculated to take away all the merit from the atten- tion of the relative, whose only fault was that of being a poor relation^ "But," she resumed, "you are very good, my cousin. Do I owe you a great deal of money for this little trifle?" This question caused the poor man an internal shudder. He had counted on paying off the score of his dinners by the offer of this jewel. " I had hoped that you would permit me to offer it to you," said he, in a voice of some emotion. "Well, well," replied Madame Camusot, " but between us, let us have no ceremony; we know each other well enough to wash our linen together. I know that you are not rich enough to make war at your own expense. Is it not already enough that you have taken the trouble to spend your time run- ning about among the shops?" " You would not wish this fan at all, my dear cousin, if you should be obliged to pay the value of it," replied the poor man, much wounded, " for it is a masterpiece by Watteau, who painted both sides of it; but don't disturb yourself, my dear cousin, I 4 50 THE POOR RELATIONS did not pay the hundredth part of the value of this work of art." To say to a rich person "You are poor!" is like telling the Archbishop of Granada that his homilies are worthless. Madame de Marville was much too proud of the position of her husband, of the owner- ship of the estate of Marville, and of her invita- tions to the court balls, not to be touched to the quick by such a remark, especially coming from a miserable musician to whom she wished to stand in the attitude of a benefactress. fhey are then monstrously stupid, the people from whom you buy such things ? " she said, quickly. " There are no stupid dealers known in Paris," replied Pons, almost drily. "Then it is you who are very clever," said Cecile, to calm the debate. " My little cousin, I have wit enough to know Lancret, Pater, Watteau, Greuze; but above all, I have the desire to please your dear mamma." Ignorant and vain as she was, Madame de Marville did not wish to have the air of receiving the smallest gift from her poor relation, and her ignorance in this case served her admirably; she did not even know the name of Watteau. If anything can express the lengths to which the self-love of the collectors which is certainly one of the keenest, for it rivals the self-love 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. COUSIN PONS 51 Stupefied at his own courage, Pons subsided into a pacific state in explaining to Cecile the beauties of the delicate carving on the sticks of this marvelous fan. But to understand fully the secret of the sin- cere trepidation to which the poor man was a prey, it is necessary to give a slight sketch of the presi- dent's wife. At forty-six years of age, Madame de Mar- ville, formerly petite, blonde, plump, and fresh, was still petite, but had now become withered. Her prominent forehead, her pinched mouth, which was adorned in youth in delicate tints, had changed her expression, naturally disdainful, and given her a sullen look. The ha hit of abcoluto control in-her own house had given a hard and disagreeable ex- pression to her countenance. The lapse of time had changed her blonde hair to a faded chestnut color. The eyes, still keen and caustic, revealed a judicial haughtiness embittered by a concealed envy. In fact, the president's wife found herself almost a poor woman in the midst of that society of bourgeois parvenus in which Pons was in the habit of dining. She could not forgive the rich druggist, former presi- dent of the Tribunal of Commerce, for having be- come successively Deputy Minister, Count, and Peer. She could not forgive her father-in-law for accepting, to the detriment of his eldest son, the ap- pointment of deputy from his arrondissement, at the time when Popinot was raised to the peerage. After eighteen years of service in the courts of Paris, she waited still for Camusot's appointment to the place of Councillor to the Court of Cassation, from which,"! however, he was excluded by an incapacity well 1 known at the Palais. The Minister of Justice in 1844^-4 (53) 54 THE POOR RELATIONS regretted the appointment of Camusot to the presi- dency, obtained in 1834; but he had been relegated to the Chamber of Indictments, where, thanks to his old experience as juge d' instruction, he rendered good service in deciding arrests. These mishaps, after wearing upon Madame de Marville who, moreover, did not deceive herself as to the actual value of her husband had rendered her really terrible. Her character, always aggressive, had become exasper- ating. Rather aging than old, she had made herself sharp and harsh, like a brush, in order to obtain through fear that which all the world seemed dis- posed to refuse her. Satirical to excess, she had but few friends. She was held in awe, but she surrounded herself with a number of devoted old friends of her own quality, who upheld her under peril of retaliation. Thus, the relations of poor Rons with this devil in petticoats, were like those of a scholar with the master who addressed him only with a ferule. The president's wife could not ex- plain to herself the sudden boldness of her cousin; she was ignorant of the value of his gift. " Where did you find this?" asked Cecile, exam- ining the treasure. " Rue de Lappe, at a second-hand dealer's, who had just got it from a chateau they have dismantled near Dreux, at Aulnay a chateau in which Madame de Pompadour occasionally resided before she built Menars; there have been saved from it the most splendid wainscotings known; they are so fine that Lienard, our celebrated carver in wood, has kept of COUSIN PONS 55 them, as the ne plus ultra of art, two oval panels for models. Such treasures! My dealer found this fan in a bonheur-du-jour of marquetry, which I should have bought if I collected such things; but it was unattainable a piece of furniture by Reisener is worth from three to four thousand francs! They are just beginning to recognize in Paris that the famous German and French workers in wood of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries have composed veritable pictures in wood. The merit of a collector is to be before the fashion. Why! five years hence, they will pay in Paris for the porcelains of Frankenthal, which I have been collecting for the last twenty years, 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 of the Elector-Palatine; it is older than our manu- factory at Sevres, just as the famous gardens of Heidelberg, ruined by Turenne, had the misfortune to exist before Versailles. Sevres has copied a great deal from Frankenthal. The Germans, we must give them this credit, made, before we did, admirable things in Saxony and in the Palatinate." The mother and daughter looked at each other as "! if Pons were speaking to them in Chinese, for it is difficult to imagine how ignorant and limited are the Parisians; they only know what they are told, though they may wish to learn. " How do you know Frankenthal when you see it?" 56 THE POOR RELATIONS "Why, by the signature," cried Rons enthusias- tically. "All these ravishing masterpieces are signed. The Frankenthal bears a C and a T Charles Theodore interlaced and surmounted by a prince's coronet. The old Dresden has two swords and the number of its class in gold. Vincennes signs with a horn. Vienna has a V closed and barred. Berlin has two bars. Mayence has the wheel. Sevres, the two LL's; and the porcelain of the queen, an A, meaning Antoinette, surmounted by the royal crown. In the eighteenth century all the sovereigns of Europe were rivals in the manufac- ture of porcelains. They enticed away each other's workmen. Watteau designed dinner services for the manufactory at Dresden, and his works have reached insane prices. It is necessary to be very well ac- quainted with them, because to-day Dresden repeats and recopies them. Ah! in those days they made ad- mirable things, such as they will never make again. ' ' "Ah! bah!" " Yes, cousin, they can never make again certain marquetries, certain porcelains, just as they can never make again Raphaels, Titians, nor Rem- brandts, nor Van Eycks, nor Cranachs! Why, the Chinese are wonderfully skilful, wonderfully clever, and yet to-day they are recopying the fine speci- mens of their old porcelains, called Grand Man- darins. Why, two vases of old Grand Mandarins, of the largest size, are worth six, eight, ten thou- sand francs, and you can get the modern copies for two hundred francs!" COUSIN PONS 57 "You are joking." "Cousin, these prices astonish you, and yet they are nothing. A full dinner service for twelve per- sons, in pate tendre of Sevres, which is not porce- lain, 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 fifty thousand livres. I have seen the original bill of sale." " To come back to this fan," said Cecile, to whom that treasure seemed much too old. "You will understand that I began to hunt for it as soon as your dear mamma did me the honor to request a fan," replied Rons. "I looked through all the shops of Paris without finding anything worthy; for, for the dear Madame President, I wished a masterpiece, and I thought of presenting to her the fan of Marie Antoinette, the most beautiful of all the celebrated fans, but yesterday I was dazzled by this divine chef-d'oeuvre, which Louis XV. himself had certainly ordered. Why did I go to seek a fan in the Rue de Lappe, in the shop of an Auvergnat, who sells brasses, and iron work, and gilded furni- ture? Well, I believe in the intelligence of objets d'art; they know their connoisseurs, they call them, they say ' Zit, Zit!' " The president's wife shrugged her shoulders, glancing at her daughter without Pons being able to perceive this rapid movement. "I know them all, those grabbers! 'What have you new, Papa Monistrol? Have you any panels 58 THE POOR RELATIONS for doors?' I asked this trader, who always lets me look over his things before he shows them to the large dealers. To this question, Monistrol recounted to me how Lienard, who was carving in the chapel at Dreux some very beautiful things for the civil list, had rescued at the sale at Aulnay all the carved woodwork, from the hands of the Parisian dealers, while they were occupied with the porcelains and the inlaid furniture. 'I have nothing very great,' said he to me, ' but I could pay for my journey with that,' and he showed me the bonheur-du-jour , a marvel! It was from designs by Boucher, executed in marquetry, with such art! You wanted to go down on your knees before it! 'You see, monsieur,' he said, ' I have just found in a locked drawer, of which the key was lost, and which I broke open, this fan! You can very well tell me to whom I shall sell it.' And he drew out for me this little box in mahabel wood, carved. ' See, it is that sort of Pompadour which resembles the flowery Gothic.' ' Oh,' I replied to him, ' the box is pretty. It may come to me the box. As to the fan, my old Mon- istrol, I have no Madame Pons to whom to give this old treasure; besides, they now make new ones, mighty pretty. They paint to-day this vellum mir- aculously and cheaply enough. Do you know that there are two thousand painters in Paris?' And I unfolded carelessly the fan, concealing my admira- tion, looking coldly at the two little paintings of a freedom and execution that is ravishing. I held in my hand the fan of Madame de Pompadour! Watteau COUSIN PONS 59 exterminated himself to compose this! ' How much do you want for the whole piece of furniture?' ' Oh, one thousand francs; I have been offered that already.' I named a price for the fan which corre- sponded to the probable expenses of his journey. We looked at each other then, ir r and I saw that I had my man. Then I put the fan back into its box, so that the Auvergnat would not take to examining it closely, and I went into ecstacies over the workmanship of this box, which is certainly a gem. 'If I buy it,' said I to Monistrol, ' it is because of that; you see it is only the box which tempts me. As to your bonlieur-du- jour, you can get more than one thousand francs for that. See there, how those brasses are chiseled! They are models you can make a great thing of that it has not been reproduced, it was made unique for Madame de Pompadour ' and my man, all on fire for his bonheur-du-jour, forgot the fan; he let me have it for nothing, in return for the revelation I had made him of the beauty of this piece of furni- ture of Reisener. There it is! But it requires plenty of practice to be able to drive such bargains as that! It is a combat of eye to eye, and where is there an eye like that of the Jew or an Auvergnat!" The admirable pantomime, the spirit of the old artist, which made of him, recounting the triumph of his genius over the ignorance of the dealer, a model worthy of a Dutch painter, were all lost upon the presi- dent's wife and her daughter, who exchanged be- tween them a cold and disdainful glance which meant: 60 THE POOR RELATIONS "What an original!" "That sort of thing amuses you, then?" asked the president's wife. Rons, chilled by this question, experienced a lively desire to beat the president's wife. " Why, my dear cousin," he said, " it is the chase after masterpieces! You find yourself face to face with adversaries who defend the game! It is ruse for ruse! A chef-d'oeuvre in the hands of a Norman, a Jew, or an Auvergnat why, its like a princess guarded by magicians, in the fairy stories!" " 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!" said he, in showing her one of the pastorals which represented a round danced by fictitious shepherdesses and by shepherd grand seigneurs. "What swing! What spirit! What color! And how it's done! All with one stroke! like the flourish of a writing master; you do not feel the work in it! And on the other side, see! a ball in a salon! It is the winter and the summer! And what ornaments! and how well preserved! You see, the ferrule is in gold, and it is finished on each side by a little bit of a ruby, which I have cleaned!" " If that is so, cousin, I really cannot accept from you a gift of so much value. It would be much better for you to invest the money in govern- ment bonds," said the president's wife, who would COUSIN PONS 6l nevertheless have liked nothing better than to keep this magnificent fan. "It is high time that that which has served vice should fall into the hands of virtue!" said the worthy man, recovering his self-possession. " It has taken one hundred years to bring about this miracle. You may be sure that at the ancient court no princess had anything comparable with this chef-d'oeuvre; for it is unfortunately in human nature to do more for a Pompadour than for a virtuous queen!" "Very well, I accept it," said Madame de Mar- ville, laughing. " Cecile, my little angel, go, will you, with Madeleine to see that the dinner is worthy of our cousin?" The president's wife wished to square the account. This message, spoken aloud, contrary to the rules of good breeding, resembled so much the receipt for a payment, that Pons blushed like a young girl de- tected in a fault. The gravel this time was a little too coarse, and it rolled about for some time in his unfortunate heart. Cecile, a very reddish young person, infected with pedantry, imitated the judicial gravity of her father, and feeling the dryness of her mother, disappeared, leaving the poor Pons alone with the terrible president's wife. " She is very sweet, my little Lili," said Madame de Marville, using the childish abbreviation formerly given to the name of Cecile. "Charming," replied the old musician, twirling his thumbs. " I cannot understand the times in which we 62 THE POOR RELATIONS live," resumed the president's wife. "Of what use is it to have had for father a president of the Cour Royale of Paris, and a Commander of the Legion of Honor; for grandfather, a millionaire deputy, a future peer of France, and the richest of all the wholesale silk merchants?" The devotion of the president to the new dynasty had recently secured for him the Ribbon of a Com- mander of the Legion of Honor, a favor, attributed by some certain envious ones, to the friendship which allied him with Popinot. That minister, in spite of his natural modesty, had allowed himself, as we have seen, to be made a count. "For the sake of my son," he would say to his numerous friends. " It is only the money that one wants nowadays," replied Cousin Pons; " none but the rich are re- spected, and " " What might not have happened," cried the presi- dent's wife, "if Heaven had left me my poor little Charles!" " Oh, with two children you would have been poor," replied the cousin. "This is the result of the equal division of property; but do not worry, my beautiful cousin. Cecile will certainly end by making a good marriage. I do not see anywhere a young girl as accomplished as she." Thus you may^see how Pons debased his soul before his amphitryoris^ he repeated their ideas, and he uttered platitudes upon them after the fashion of a Greek chorus. He dared not surrender himself to COUSIN PONS 63 that originality which distinguishes the true artist, and which in his youth had been abundant in him, but the habit of effacing himself had by this time nearly destroyed it, and it was suppressed when- ever, as at this moment, it gave signs of reap- pearance. " But I was married with twenty thousand francs of dot only " "Ah, in 1819, my cousin," interrupted Pons. "And besides, it was you, a woman of intelligence, a young girl under the protection of the king, Louis XVIII !" " But all the same, my daughter is an angel of perfection, of wit; she is full of heart, she will have one hundred thousand francs in marriage, without counting her expectations, and here she is still on our hands " Madame de Marville continued to talk of her daughter and of herself during the next twenty minutes, delivering the same complaints peculiar to mothers who are under the power of marriageable daughters. During the last twenty years in which the old musician had been in the habit of dining with his only cousin Camusot, the poor man had never heard a word of his personal affairs, or of his life, or of his health. Pons was, moreover, a species of receptacle for all domestic confidences; his well- known and necessary discretion offered the strongest security, for a single indiscreet word from him would have closed in his face the doors of ten houses. His vocation of listener was, therefore, accompanied by a constant approbation; he smiled at everything, he accused and he defended no one; for him every- body was right. Thus, in short, he could no longer be reckoned as a man he was only a stomach! In the course of her long tirade, the president's wife admitted, though not without some precaution, to her cousin, that she was disposed to accept for her daughter, almost blindly, any proposals that might present themselves. She even went so far as to say that she should consider a man of forty-eight years of age a good match, provided he had twenty thous- and francs of income. " Cecile is in her twenty -third year, and if she 5 (65) 66 THE POOR RELATIONS should be so unlucky as to reach twenty-five or twenty-six, it would be excessively difficult to marry her. The world asks why a young girl ' hangs fire ' so long. Already people in our society are talking a great deal too much of this situation. We have exhausted all the commonplace reasons ' She is still young She loves her parents too much to leave them She is happy in her own home She is difficult to please She wishes a distinguished name.' We are getting ridiculous, I am well aware of it. Besides, Cecile herself is weary of waiting; she suffers, poor little thing." " But of what?" asked Pons foolishly. "Why," replied the mother in the tone of a duenna, "she is humiliated by seeing all her friends married before her." " My dear cousin, what is it that has happened since I last had the pleasure of dining here, that you should be thinking of a man of forty-eight years of age?" asked the poor musician humbly. "This has happened," answered the president's wife. " We were to have had an interview with a councillor of the court, who has a son of thirty years of age and whose fortune is considerable, and for whom M. de Marville would have obtained, through the financial administration, a post as ref- eree in the Cour des Comptes. The young man is already there as a supernumerary. And they now say to us that this young man has had the folly to go off to Italy in the train of a duchess of the Bal Mabille. It is a disguised refusal. They do not COUSIN PONS 67 want to give us a young man whose mother is dead and who enjoys already an income of thirty thous- and francs, while waiting for his father's fortune. So you must pardon our ill-humor, dear cousin; you have come in just at our crisis." While Pons was trying to find one of those com- plimentary replies which invariably came to him too late, in presence of the amphitryon of whom he stood in awe, Madeleine entered, handed a note to Madame de Marville, and waited for a reply. The message was as follows: " Let us pretend, dear mamma, that this word has been sent to us from the Palais by my father, and that he tells you to bring me to dine with his friend and renew the offer of my marriage. The cousin may then go away, and we can follow out our plans at the Popinots." "How did your master send this note?" asked Madame de Marville, quickly. " By a messenger from the Palais," boldly an- swered the withered Madeleine. By this reply, the old waiting woman indicated to her mistress that she had got up this plot in concert with the impatient Cecile. " Say that my daughter and I will be there at half-past five." As soon as Madeleine disappeared, the president's wife looked at the cousin Pons with that sham friendship which produces on the sensitive soul the 68 THE POOR RELATIONS effect that vinegar and milk mixed together produce on the tongue of an epicure. " My dear cousin, the dinner is ordered; you must eat it without us, for my husband writes to me from the court room to say that the project of the mar- riage is still considered by the councillor, and we are to dine there to-day. You understand that there is no ceremony between us. Make yourself here en- tirely at home. You see the frankness with which I treat you; I have no secrets you would not wish to interfere with the marriage of this little angel?" " I, my dear cousin, on the contrary I should like 'nothing better than to find her a husband; but in the circle I visit " "Yes, it is not very probable," interrupted the president's wife, impolitely. "Well, then, you will stay? Cecile will keep you company while I dress." " Oh, cousin, I can go and dine elsewhere," said the poor man. Although cruelly affected by the manner in which the president's wife had made him feel his indigence, he was still more appalled by the prospect of being left alone with the servants. " But why? The dinner is ready; the servants will eat it." When he heard this horrible speech, Pons started up erect, as though the knob of a galvanic battery had touched him, bowed coldly to his cousin, and went to put on his spencer. The door of Cecile's bedroom, which opened into the salon, was ajar, so COUSIN PONS 69 that as he glanced before him into a mirror, Pons perceived the young girl in fits of laughter, signaling to her mother by means of her head and by panto- mimic gestures which revealed some base mystifica- tion to the old artist. He went slowly down the staircase, with difficulty restraining his tears; he saw himself driven out of this house without knowing why. " I am too old nowadays," he said to himself, " the world holds in horror old age and poverty, two hideous things. I will never dine anywhere again without an invitation." Heroic words! The door of the kitchen, which was on the ground floor and faced the lodge, was open, as it frequently is in houses that are occupied by their owners, and where the porte cochere is always closed. Pons could therefore hear the laughter of the cook and the valet de chambre, to whom Madeleine was relating the trick just played upon him, for she did not sup- pose that the worthy man would evacuate the place so promptly. The valet de chambre approved highly of this pleasantry directed against a habitue of the house who, as he said, never gave anything but a little crown for the New Year's gifts! " Oh, but if he take offense and never come back," remarked the cook, "we will have three francs less for all of us on New Year's day." " Well, how should he hear of it?" said the valet de chambre, in reply. " Bah!" cried Madeleine, "a little sooner, a little 70 THE POOR RELATIONS later, what does it matter? He bores so much the masters of all the houses where he dines that before long they will all turn him out." At this moment the old musician called: " The door, if you please," to the concierge, so that she might open it. This dolorous cry was received with profound silence in the kitchen. " He heard," said the valet de chambre. "Oh, well! so much the worse, or rather so much the better," replied Madeleine; "he's a dead rat." The poor man, who had not lost a syllable of this kitchen talk, heard even these last words. He-re- turned home along the boulevards in the condition of an old woman who has had a desperate struggle with assassins. He walked, talking to himself, with a convulsive swiftness, for his bleeding honor pushed him along like a straw before a furious wind. At last he found himself on the Boulevard du Temple at five o'clock, without knowing in the least how he got there; but, extraordinary to relate, Tie did not feel the least appetite. Now, in order to comprehend the revolution which the return of Pons at this hour was about to produce in his own house, the explanation heretofore prom- ised as to Madame Cibot, must now be given. The Rue de Normandie is one of those streets in which you might think yourself in the provinces; grass flourishes there, and a passer-by is an event, and all the inhabitants know each other. The houses date from the period when, under Henry IV., 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 in everything, everywhere, even in theory. The house in which the two musicians dwelt was an ancient hotel between court and garden; but the front on the street had been built at a time during the last century when the Marais had been the extreme of fashion. The two friends occupied the whole of the second floor of the ancient hotel. This double house belonged to M. Pillerault, an octoge- narian, who had left the management of it to M. and Madame Cibot, as door-keepers, for the last twenty- six years. Now, as the emoluments of a door-keeper of the Marais are not sufficient to enable him to live by the profits of his occupation, the Sieur Cibot added to his tithe of a sou per franc, and his billet levied upon each load of wood, the income from his per- sonal industries; he was a tailor, like many another concierge. In course of time, Cibot had ceased to 72 THE POOR RELATIONS work for the master tailors; for, in consequence of the confidence reposed in him by the smaller bour- geois of the quarter, he enjoyed a monopoly of repairs, darns, renovations as good as new, of the garments within a perimeter of three streets. His lodge was large and airy; it adjoined a bedroom. Thus the Cibot household was considered as one of the most fortunate among Messieurs the concierges of the arrondissement. Cibot, a little stunted man, grown olive-colored by dint of sitting forever cross-legged, like a Turk, on a table raised to the level of a barred window looking on the street, earned by his trade about forty sous a day. He worked still, although he was fifty -eight years of age; but fifty-eight, that is the fine age for concierges; by that time they have become fitted into their lodgings, the lodge has become for them that which the shell is for the oys- ter, and they are known in the quarter ! Madame Cibot, formerly a handsome oyster- woman, had left her stand at the Cadran Bleu, for love of Cibot, at the age of twenty-eight, after all the adventures which a beautiful oyster-seller encounters without seeking them. The beauty of the women of the people seldom lasts long, especially when they are trained, like a wall fruit, at the door of a restaurant. The scorching blaze of the kitchen reflected on their features hardens them; the rem- nants of the bottles, drunk in company with the waiters, filters through their complexions, and no flower ripens more quickly than that of the handsome COUSIN PONS 73 oyster-woman. Luckily for Madame Cibot, legiti- mate marriage and the life of a concierge came in time to preserve her; she remained like a model of Rubens, keeping her vigorous beauty, which her rivals of the Rue de Normandie calumniated in qualifying as puffy. Her flesh tints might be com- pared to those appetizing mounds of the butter of Isigny to be seen in the markets; and yet, notwith- standing her corpulence, she displayed an incom- parable agility in the exercise of her functions. Madame Cibot had attained the age when this style of women are obliged to resort to the razor. Is not that the same as saying that she was forty-eight years of age? A female door-keeper with a mous- tache is one of the greatest guarantees of security and order that a proprietor can have. If Delacroix could have seen Madame Cibot posing proudly on her broom, certainly he would have made of her a Bellona! The position of the Cibot couple, to speak in legal manner, was destined strangely enough to affect one day that of the two friends; thus the historian, if he would be faithful, is obliged to enter into some details on this subject of their lodge. The house brought a rental of about eight thousand francs, for it had three suites of apartments, double in depth, upon the street, and three in the ancient hotel between the court and the garden. In addition to these, a trader in old iron, named Remonencq, occupied a shop on the street. This Remonencq, who had developed within a few months into the dignity of a 74 THE POOR RELATIONS merchant of curiosities, was so well acquainted with the bric-a-brac value of Pons that he always bowed to him from the depths of his shop, whenever the musician entered or went out. Thus the sou per franc brought about four hundred francs a year to the Cibot household, which moreover got its lodging and firewood for nothing. Now, as the earnings of the husband amounted to about seven hundred or eight hundred francs a year on an average, the couple made up, counting their New Year's gratuities, an income of sixteen hundred francs, all of which they spent, for they lived better than the majority of {'the common people. "You only live once," said \ Madame Cibot. Born during the revolution, she \ was ignorant, as you see, of the catechism. *"" Through her former relations with the Cadran Bleu, this belle concierge, with proud and orange- colored eyes, had preserved certain culinary accom- plishments which rendered her husband an object of envy for all his associates. Thus it happened that at their present ripe maturity, on the threshold of old age, the Cibots found themselves with not a hundred francs of savings. Well-clothed, well nourished, they enjoyed throughout the quarter the consideration due to twenty-six years of strict probity. If they owned no property, at least they " owed to no one not a centime," according to their own expression, for Madame Cibot was prodigal of negatives in her conversation. She said to her husband, "Thou art not no fool!" Why? You might as well demand the reason of her indifference COUSIN PONS 75 in matters of religion. Proud, both of them, of their honest lives, open to the daylight, of the esteem in which they were held by six or seven streets, and of the autocratic power which their proprietor allowed them to exercise in the house, they yet groaned in secret at having no invested means. Cibot complained of twinges in his hands and legs, and Madame Cibot deplored the fact that her poor Cibot was compelled to work at his age. The day will come when after thirty years of such a life, a concierge will accuse the government of in- justice and demand that he be given the decoration of the Legion of Honor! Every time that the gos- sips of the quarter learned that such and such a ser- vant, after eight or ten years of service, had retired with a little legacy of three or four hundred francs annuity, there circulated from lodge to lodge such complaints as might give an idea of the jealousy with which are devoured all the inferior professions in Paris. " There now! It will never happen to any of us poor devils to get mentioned in a will! We have no luck! We are more useful than a servant, however, any day. We are people of responsibility, we make out the receipts, we watch over the property, but we are treated like dogs, neither more nor less!" " There is nothing but work and bad luck," said Cibot, mending a coat. " If I had left Cibot to his lodge and gone as a cook, we would have had thirty thousand francs in- vested by this time," cried Madame Cibot, gossiping 76 THE POOR RELATIONS with her neighbors, with her hands on her big hips. "I have not taken life right, talk about being lodged and warmed inside a good home and wanting for nothing!" When in 1836 the two friends came to occupy the second floor of the ancient hotel, they occasioned a sort of revolution in the Cibot household. In this way. Schmucke had, as also his friend Rons, the custom of employing the door-keepers, male and female, of the houses in which he lodged, to take charge of his rooms. The two musicians were therefore of the same mind, when they installed themselves in the Rue de Normandie, to make an arrangement with Madame Cibot, who became their housekeeper for the consideration of twenty-five francs a month, twelve francs and fifty centimes for each. At the end of the year this portress emerita reigned over the household of the two old bachelors, just as she reigned over the estab- lishment of M. Pillerault, the great-uncle of Madame la Comtesse Popinot; their affairs were her affairs, and she said: "My two gentlemen." Finally, finding the two Nut-crackers mild as sheep, easy to live with, not in the least suspicious, perfect chil- dren, she gradually grew, with her heart of a woman of the people, into the habit of protecting them, of adoring them, of serving them, with so veritable a devotion that she delivered to them occasional lec- tures and defended them against the many frauds which combine in Paris to swell the expenses of the household. For twenty-five francs a month the COUSIN PONS 77 two bachelors, without premeditation and without being aware of it, had acquired a mother. As they grew to perceive Madame Cibot's real value, the two musicians artlessly presented her with little eulogiums, with thanks, with small gifts, which drew still closer the bonds of this domestic alliance. Madame Cibot would rather a thousand times be appreciated at her just value than paid; a sentiment which, be it understood, always amplifies wages. Cibot executed for half price, the errands, the mend- ings, everything which concerned the service of his wife's two old gentlemen. Finally, in the second year, 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 at once his own indolence and his desire to live without bothering himself with any- thing. For the sum of thirty sous a day, or forty- five francs a month, Madame Cibot took upon herself to supply him with breakfast and dinner. Pons, finding his friend's breakfast very satisfactory, made a like bargain for his own breakfast at eighteen francs a month. This system of supplies, which threw about ninety francs a month into the receipts of the lodge, made of the two lodgers inviolate beings, angels, cherubim, divinities. It is exceed- ingly doubtful if the king of the French, with all his experience in these matters, was as well served as were the two Nut-crackers. For them the milk came pure from the can ; they read gratuitously the 78 THE POOR RELATIONS newspapers of the first and third floors, whose tenants rose late and who could be told, if necessary, that their journals had not yet come. Madame Cibot, moreover, kept the apartment, the clothes, the landing, everything, in a state of cleanliness worthy of the Flemings. Schmucke, for his part, enjoyed a happiness for which he had never dared to hope; Madame Cibot made life easy for him. He gave about six francs a month for his washing, of which she took charge, as well as of all his mending. He expended fifteen francs a month for tobacco. These three items of expense formed a monthly total of sixty-six francs, which, multiplied by twelve, gives seven hundred and ninety-two francs. Add two hundred and twenty francs for rent and extras, and you have a thousand and twelve francs. Cibot made Schmucke's clothes, and the average of this expense amounted to about one hundred and fifty francs. This profound philosopher, then, lived at a cost of twelve hundred francs a year. How many people in Europe whose sole desire is to come and live at Paris, will be agreeably sur- prised to learn that you can be happy there with twelve hundred francs of income, in the Rue de Normandie, in the Marais, under the protection of Madame Cibot! Madame Cibot was stupefied in seeing the good Rons come home at five o'clock in the afternoon. Not only had such a thing never happened before, but her " Monsieur " did not even see her, and did not bow to her. COUSIN PONS 79 "Ah, well, Cibot!" she said to her husband, " Monsieur Pons is either a millionaire or crazy!" "It looks like it," replied Cibot, letting fall the sleeve of a coat in which he was making, to use the slang of tailors, a poignard. At the moment when Pons mechanically re-entered his house, Madame Cibot was just finishing the dinner of Schmucke. This dinner consisted of a certain ragout, of which the odor was diffused throughout the whole courtyard. It was made of the remnants of boiled beef, bought at a cook-shop, not to say a chandler's, and fricasseed in butter with onions cut in fine strips until the butter was wholly absorbed by the meat and the onions, so that this delicacy of the concierge presented 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. And you may well believe that Solomon in all his glory did not dine better than did Schmucke. Sometimes this dish of boiled meat fricasseed with onions, sometimes the remnants of chicken saute, sometimes cold beef with parsley and a fish cooked with a sauce invented by Madame Cibot, in which a mother might have eaten her own child without perceiving it, sometimes a dish of venison, according to the quality or quan- tity sold second-hand from the restaurants of the boulevard to the cook-shops of the Rue Boucherat; such was Schmucke's bill of fare, who was well 80 THE POOR RELATIONS contented to accept, without any remarks, all that was served to him by his goof Montame Zipod. And from day to day the good Madame Cibot had lessened the fare until she managed to supply it at a cost to herself of twenty sous. "I am going up to see if nothing hasn't happened to him, that poor, dear man," said Madame Cibot to her spouse; "here's Mr. 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 arrived at the apartment of the two friends just at the moment when Schmucke opened the door to Rons. "Vat ees de madder, my goot frent?" asked the German, frightened by the collapse visible in Rons' face. " I will tell you all; but I have come to dine with you " " To tine ! to tine ! " cried Schmucke, en- chanted, delighted. "Pud dad ees imbossible!" he added, remembering the gastronomic habits of his friend. At this moment the old German perceived Madame Cibot, who was listening, according to her legitimate rights as housekeeper. Seized by one of those in- spirations which only blossom in the heart of a true friend, he went straight to her and drew her out upon the landing. " Montame Zipod, der goot Bons lofes goot dings to eat; go to der Catran Pleu und order a nice leetle COUSIN PONS 8 1 fine tinner; anchofies, magaroni, in vact a rebast of Lugullus." "A repast of what?" demanded Madame Cibot. " Vy," replied Schmucke, " it ees a frigandeau of feal, a goot feesh, a pottle of fine Porteaux, and someding of everyding dat ees der best like rice groqueetes, some smoked bagon! Bay for it! Don't zay a vort! I vill geef you der money for it do- morrow morning." Schmucke re-entered with a joyous air, rubbing his hands; but his face resumed gradually an ex- pression of stupefaction as he listened to the recital of the misfortunes that had suddenly overwhelmed the heart of his friend. He endeavored to console Pons by depicting to him the world from his own point of view. Paris was a perpetual tornado, men and women were whirled about in it in the mazes of a furious waltz, and it was never worth while to expect anything from the world, 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 whom he loved, by whom he was cherished, for whom he would have given his life, and from whom he even received a little pension of nine hundred francs, to which each contributed equally, had so completely for- gotten, year after year, to come and see him, were so violently carried away by the 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 6 82 THE POOR RELATIONS of these great ladies at ten o'clock in the morning. And, finally, the quarterly installments of his pen- sion were paid him by a notary. "And yet," he added, "dey are hearts of gold. Dey are my leetle Zaint Zezilias, sharming laties Montame de Bordentuere, Montame de Fantenesse, Montame ti Dilet. Yen 1 zee dem, it ees in der Jambs-lusees, vidout dair seeing me ant dey lofe me mooch, ant I can go ant tine mit dem, ant dey vill pe veil pleaset; put I much prefair to pe mit my frent Bons, pegause I gan zee heem venefer I vant to, efery tay." Pons took the hand of Schmucke between his own, and grasped it with a movement in which his whole soul was communicated, and they both re- mained thus for some minutes, like two lovers who meet again after long absence. " Tine mit me here, efery tay !" resumed Schmucke, who was inwardly blessing the cruelty of the presi- dent's wife. "Zee, ve vill prig-a-prag togedder; and der tefil shall nefare get hees dail insite our toors." To explain these truly heroic words, "Ve vill prig-a-prag togedder," it must be admitted that Schmucke was in a state of crass ignorance as to bric-a-bracology. It required nothing less than the whole strength of his friendship to keep him from breaking things in the salon, and in the apartment 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 COUSIN PONS 83 which had received a ticket of invitation would regard a flower show at the Luxembourg. He respected these marvelous works of art solely because of the respect which Pons manifested in dusting his treas- ures. He replied, "Yes, dat is ferry breddy," to the admiration of his friend, as a mother replies with unmeaning phrases to the gestures of a child that cannot yet talk. Since the two friends had lived together, Schmucke had seen Pons change his clock seven times, always in bartering an inferior one for a better one. Pons was now the owner of a most magnificent clock by Boulle, a clock in ebony, inlaid with brass, and adorned with carvings in the first manner of Boulle. Boulle had two styles, just as Raphael had three. In the first he wedded brass to ebony, and in the second, against his convictions, he sacrificed to tortoise-shell. He produced prodigies solely to vanquish his competitors, inventors of the tortoise-shell inlay. Notwithstanding the learned demonstration of Pons, Schmucke was not able to see the slightest difference between the magnificent clock in the first manner of Boulle and the six others. But because they made his friend happy, Schmucke took even more care of these "knick- knacks " than his friend himself. It is not surprising, then, that the sublime phrase of Schmucke had the power to calm the distress of Pons, for the "ve vill prig-a-prag togedder " of the German meant: " I will put money in the bric-a-brac if you will dine here." " Dinner is ready, gentlemen," said Madame Cibot, with an astonishing composure. 84 THE POOR RELATIONS The surprise of Rons at seeing and tasting the dinner due to the friendship of Schmucke may be readily understood. These sensations, so rare in life, do not come from the steady devotion which makes two men say to each other perpetually, "You have in me another self," for to that they grow accustomed; no, they are caused by the comparison of such proofs of the happiness of domestic intimacy with the brutal selfishness of worldly life. It is such experience of the world which ceaselessly links anew two friends or two lovers when two true souls are wedded, either by love or by friendship. Thus Pons wiped away two big tears, and Schmucke for his part was obliged to dry his moist eyes. They said nothing to each other, but they loved each other all the more, and they made to each other little motions of the head, whose balmy expressions soothed the anguish of the gravel introduced by the president's wife into the heart of Pons. Schmucke rubbed his hands till the skin was in danger, for he had suddenly conceived one of those inventions which only astonish a German when they are sud- denly developed in his brain, congealed as it usually is by the respect due sovereign princes. " My goot Bons," he said. "I guess what you want. You wish that we should dine together every day " " I vish dat I vas reech enuf to tine like dat efery tay," replied sadly the good German. Madame Cibot, to whom Pons gave occasionally tickets for the theatre of the boulevard, which PONS, SCHMUCKE AND THE CIBOT In hearing tJiis promise, Schmucke jumped from one end of the table to the other, dragging with him the cloth, tlie plates, the water-bottles, and seized Pons in an embrace comparable to that of one gas rushing to mix itself with another gas for which it has an affinity. COUSIN PONS 85 elevated him to the same level in her heart as that of her boarder Schmucke, here made a proposition, which was as follows: "My goodness," said she, "for three francs, without wine, I can give you every day, you two, such a dinner that you will lick the plates and make them as clean as if they had been washed." " De fagt ees," replied Schmucke, "dat I tine pedder mit dat vich Montame Zipod gooks for me, dan to de gentry who eat de king's dishes." In the fervor of his new hope, the respectful German went so far as to imitate the irreverence of the minor newspapers in calumniating the fare, at so much a head, at the royal table. " Truly?" said Pons. "Well, then, 1 will try it to-morrow!" In hearing this promise, Schmucke jumped from one end of the table to the other, dragging with him the cloth, the plates, the water-bottles, and seized Pons in an embrace comparable to that of one gas rushing to mix itself with another gas for which it has an affinity. " Vat habbiness!" he cried. " Monsieur will dine here every day!" said Mad- ame Cibot, proudly and tenderly. Unaware of the circumstances to which she owed the accomplishment of her dream, the excellent woman descended to her lodge, and entered it as Josepha comes upon the scene in "William Tell." She threw down the plates and dishes, and cried: 86 THE POOR RELATIONS "Cibot, run and get two demi-tasses at the Cafe Turc, and tell the waiter in the kitchen they are for me." Then she sat down, putting her hands upon her sturdy knees, and looking through the window at the opposite wall, said: " I will go this evening and consult Mame Fon- taine!" Madame Fontaine was the fortune-teller of all the cooks, waiting-maids, lackeys, porters, etc., in the Marais. "Since those two gentlemen came to live with us, we have put two thousand francs in the savings bank. In eight years, what luck! I wonder if it would not be better to earn nothing out of the dinner of Monsieur Rons, and make him stick to the house? Mame Fontaine's hen will tell me that." In seeing no signs of heirs, neither for Rons nor for Schmucke, for the last three years Madame Cibot had been flattering herself with the hope of obtain- ing a mention in the wills of " her gentlemen," and her zeal, which up to that time had been full of in- tegrity, redoubled under the influence of this cupid- ity, developed in the middle of her mustachios, thus late in life. By dining out every day, Pons had escaped the complete servitude in which the con- cierge wished to hold her gentlemen. The nomadic life of this old troubadour-collector had hitherto scared the vague ideas of seduction which danced in the brain of Madame Cibot, and which developed into a formidable plan from the day of this memorable COUSIN PONS 87 dinner. A quarter of an hour later she reap- peared in the dining-room, armed with two cups of excellent coffee, flanked by two petits verres of Kirschwasser. "Long lif Montame Zipod!" cried Schmucke. " She has guesset choost vat ve vanted." After a few lamentations from the disappointed diner-out, which Schmucke combated with such wheedlings as the sitting pigeon would lavish on the traveler pigeon, the two friends went out to- gether. Schmucke was unwilling to leave his friend to himself in the situation into which he had been thrown by the conduct of the masters and servants in the house of Camusot. He knew Rons, and he was sure that horribly sad reflections were likely to seize him at the orchestra on his magisterial seat, and to destroy the good effect of his home-coming to the nest. In bringing Pons back to the lodging that evening toward midnight, Schmucke held 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 commenced; he warned him of all the gutters; he would have had the pave- ments in cotton, the sky blue, and the angels war- bling in Pons' ear the music which they sang in his own. He had conquered the last province which was not already his own in his friend's heart! For nearly three months, Rons dined every day with Schmucke. In the first place he was obliged to retrench eighty francs a month from his pur- chases, for he required about thirty-five francs' worth of wine, with the forty-five francs that the dinner cost him. Then, notwithstanding all the care and the Teutonic jests of Schmucke, the old artist regretted the exquisite dishes, the little glasses of liqueur, the good coffee, the chat, the empty civili- ties, the guests, and the gossip of the houses in which he had formerly dined. Habits which have endured for thirty-six years are not easily broken in the decline of life. Wine at a hundred and thirty francs per cask furnishes a poor liquid in the glass of an epicure; and, thus, each time that Pons carried his glass to his lips he recalled with a thous- and poignant regrets, the exquisite wines of his amphitryons. So that at the end of three months the sharp sufferings which had almost broken his sensitive heart, were weakened, and he remembered only the pleasures of society; just as an old ladies' man regrets a mistress whom he has abandoned for her many infidelities! Although he endeavored to hide the profound melancholy which consumed him, the old musician could be seen to be evidently a prey to one of those inexplicable diseases whose seat is (89) 90 THE POOR RELATIONS in the moral being. To explain this nostalgia pro- duced by a broken habit, it will suffice to indicate one of those thousand little nothings which, like the rings of a coat of mail, cover the soul with a net- work of iron. One of the keenest pleasures in the former life of Rons, one of the "happinesses of the former diner-out, had been the surprise, the gastro- nomic impression produced by some extraordinary dish, some delicacy added triumphantly by the mis- tress of the bourgeois house who wished to give a festal air to her dinner! This delight of the stomach was now lacking to Pons, for Madame Cibot always took pains to inform him of the bill of fare through pride. The periodic piquancy of the daily life of Pons had totally disappeared. His dinner passed off without the unexpectedness of that which formerly in the house of our ancestors was known as "the covered dish." This is what Schmucke was, nat- urally, unable to comprehend. Pons was too delicate to complain, and if there is something even more distressing than misunderstood genius, it is a stomach uncomprehended. The heart whose love is repulsed, this drama of which we hear so much, rests on a false want; for if the creature deserts us, we can at least love the Creator. He has treasures to bestow upon us. But the stomach! nothing can be com- pared to its sufferings; for, after all, it is the life! Pons regretted certain custards, veritable poems! certain white sauces, masterpieces! certain truffled chickens, loves! and above all, those famous carp from the Rhine, which can only be found in Paris, COUSIN PONS 91 and with what condiments! On certain days he would cry out, "Oh, Sophia!" in thinking of the cook of Comte Popinot. The passer-by overhearing this sigh, would have thought that the good man was thinking of a mistress, but it was an affair of something much more rare, of a fat carp! accom- panied by a sauce, clear in the dish, thick on the tongue, a sauce worthy of the Prix Montyon! The very remembrance of these dinners, eaten thus, made considerably thinner this chief of orchestra, attacked by a gastric nostalgia. At the beginning of the fourth month, toward the end of January, 1845, the young flute-player who was named Wilhelm, like almost all Germans, and Schwab, to distinguish him from all the Wilhelms which did not, however, distinguish him from all the other Schwabs thought necessary to enlighten Schmucke on the condition of the leader of the or- chestra, with which the whole theatre was concerned. It was the day of a first representation, and there were some instruments for the old German master to play. " The good old man is going down hill, there is something in his bellows which sounds wrong. His eye is sad, the movement of his arm is growing weaker," said Wilhelm Schwab, pointing to Pons, who was mounting his pulpit with a funereal air. " It is like dat always at seexty years," answered Schmucke. Schmucke, like that mother in the Chronicles of the Canongate, who, to keep her son with her 92 THE POOR RELATIONS twenty-four hours longer, caused him to be shot, was capable of sacrificing Pons for the pleasure of dining with him every day. " Everybody at the theatre is worrying about him, and, as Mademoiselle Helolse Brisetout, our pre- mttre danseuse, says, ' he scarcely makes any noise in blowing his nose.' " The old musician seemed to be sounding the horn, usually, when he blew his nose, so much did that long and hollow organ resound in his handkerchief. This uproar had been the cause of one of the most frequent complaints of the president's wife to her cousin Pons. " I would gif a great teal to amuse heem," said Schmucke. " He is getting melengolly." " Yes, indeed," said Wilhelm Schwab. " M. Pons seems to me such a superior being to us poor devils that I would not dare to invite him to my wedding. I am going to be married " "How?" demanded Schmucke. "Oh! honestly," answered Wilhelm, who found in the queer question of Schmucke a jest of which that perfect Christian was quite incapable. " Come, gentlemen, take your places," said Pons, looking around at his little army in the orchestra, as he heard the director's bell. They played the over- ture of La Fiancee du Diable, a fairy piece which ran through two hundred representations. After the first act, Wilhelm and Schmucke were left alone in the deserted orchestra. The atmosphere of the theatre was at about thirty-two degrees Reaumur. COUSIN PONS 93 "Dell me, den, your story," said Schmucke to Wilhelm. "There, don't you see in the proscenium box, that young man? do you recognize him?" "Nod ad all." "Ah! that's because he has yellow gloves, and because he shines with all the glory of wealth; but he is my friend, Fritz Brunner, of Frankfort-on-the- Main." " He dat uset to come and sit in the orguesdra besite you?" " The very same. It is hard to believe in such a metamorphosis as that, is it not?" The hero of this promised tale was one of those Germans whose faces contain at the same time the sombre mockery of the Mephistopheles of Goethe, and the good-natured cheerfulness of the novels of August Lafontaine, of peaceful memory; cunning and simplicity, the hard eagerness of the shop and the deliberate, indolent indifference of a member of the Jockey Club; above all, that disgust which put the pistol into the hand of Werther, who was much more weary of the German princes than he was of Charlotte. It was truly a typical German face; much of the Jew and much simplicity, stupidity and courage, a knowledge which produces ennui, an ex- perience which the slightest childishness might ren- der useless; the abuse of beer and tobacco; but to heighten the effect of all these antitheses, a diaboli- cal sparkle shone in the handsome, tired blue eyes. Dressed with all the elegance of a banker, Fritz 94 THE POOR RELATIONS Brunner offered to the gaze of the audience a bald head, in the coloring of Titian, on each side of which curled a few locks of bright blond hair, which de- bauchery and want had spared him, that he might have cause to pay a hair-dresser in the days of his financial restoration. His face, formerly fresh and handsome, like that of the Jesus Christ of the painters, had acquired certain sharp tones, which the red moustache and the tawny beard rendered almost sinister. The pure blue of his eyes had become cloudy in his struggles with mortification. Finally, the thousand prostitutions of Paris had blurred the eyelids and the contour of the eyes, in which formerly a mother might have seen with de- light a divine reflection of her own. This premature philosopher, this youthful old man, was the product of a step-mother. Here begins a singular history of a prodigal son of Frankfort-on-the-Main, the most extraordinary and bizarre affair that ever happened in that sage, though central, city. M. Gedeon Brunner, the father of this Fritz, one of the celebrated inn-keepers of Frankfort-on-the- Main, who practiced, in collusion with the bankers, the depravities, authorized by law, upon the pockets of the tourists, an honest Calvinist, moreover, had espoused a converted Jewess, to whose dot he owed the foundation of his fortune. This Jewess died, leaving a son Fritz, then twelve years of age, to the guardianship of his father and under the supervision of a maternal uncle, a furrier at Leipsic, the head COUSIN PONS 95 of the house of Virlaz & Co. Brunner, the father, was obliged by this uncle, who was not altogether as soft as his furs, to place the fortune of young Fritz in a great many marcs banco in the banking house of Al-Sartchild, and not to touch it. In re- venge for this Israelitish exaction, the pere Brunner married again, alleging the impossibility of keeping his immense inn without the eye and the arm of a wife. He married the daughter of another inn- keeper in whom he saw a pearl; but he had had no experience of what an only daughter, indulged by father and mother, could be. The second Madame Brunner was a specimen of what the young German women may be when they are spiteful and frivo- lous. She wasted his fortune, and avenged the first Madame Brunner by making her husband the most unhappy man in his own house in the whole terri- tory of the free city of Frankfort-on-the-Main, where they say the millionaires are now going to procure a municipal law to compel wives to cherish their hus- bands exclusively. This German dame loved all the different vinegars which the Germans call indis- criminately Rhine wine; she loved the articles-Paris; she loved to ride horse-back; she loved dress; in fact the only costly thing that she did not love, was woman. She took an aversion to the little Fritz, and would have driven him crazy if that youthful product of Calvinism and of the Mosaic dispensation had not had Frankfort for his cradle and the house of Virlaz at Leipsic for his guardian; but his uncle Virlaz, wrapped up in his furs, watched over only 96 THE POOR RELATIONS the marcs banco, and left the infant a prey to his step-mother. This hyena of a woman was all the more furious against this cherub, son of the beautiful Madame Brunner, because in spite of efforts worthy of a locomotive, she could not have any children herself. Prompted by a diabolical idea, this evil-minded Ger- man woman launched the young Fritz, at the age of twenty-one years, into anti-Germanic dissipations. She entertained the hope that English horses, the vinegar of the Rhine, and the Marguerites of Goethe would devour the child of the Jewess and his fortune; for Uncle Virlaz had left a fine inheritance to his little Fritz when the latter attained his majority. But, although the gaming tables of the watering-places and his wine-drinking friends, among whom was Wilhelm Schwab, disposed of the capital of Virlaz, the prodigal son himself was kept alive in order to serve, according to the will of God, as a warning to the youngsters of the city of Frankfort-on-the-Main, where all the parents held him up as a scare-crow to keep their own sons well conducted and submis- sive behind their own iron counters well lined with silver marks. Instead of dying in the flower of his age, Fritz Brunner had the pleasure of burying his step-mother in one of those charming cemeteries in which the Germans, under pretence of honoring their dead, deliver themselves up to their frantic passion for horticulture. The second Madame Brun- ner died, then, before the authors of her being, the old Brunner was quits for the money which she had COUSIN PONS 97 extracted from his coffers and for his sufferings, so that this inn-keeper, of a Herculean constitution, beheld himself, at the age of sixty-seven, diminished and shrunken as though he had partaken of the famous poison of the Borgias. Not to inherit the for- tune of his wife after having supported her for ten years, made of this inn-keeper another ruin of Hei- delberg, repaired constantly by the Rechnungen, "bills," of the travelers, just as that of Heidelberg is constantly repaired, in order to retain the enthusiasm of tourists who crowd to see this beautiful ruin so wonderfully preserved. All Frankfort talked about Brunner as if he were a bankrupt; they pointed at him with their fingers, and said: "Just see to what condition we may be brought by a bad wife whose property we cannot inherit, and by a son brought up like a Frenchman." In Italy and in Germany, the French are the cause of every misfortune, the target for all bullets; "but the God pursuing his career " for the rest see the ode of Lefranc de Pompignan. The wrath of the proprietor of the Grand Hotel de Hollande did not tumble exclusively upon the travelers whose bills (rechnungen) felt the weight of his anger. When his son was totally ruined, Gedeon, regarding him as the indirect cause of all his misfor- tunes, refused him bread and water, salt, fire, lodg- ment, and a pipe! which in a German inn-keeping parent is the last degree of paternal malediction. The authorities of the place, not taking into account the original wrong-doing of the father, and seeing 7 98 THE POOR RELATIONS in him only one of the most unfortunate men in Frankfort-on-the-Main, came to his aid; they ex- pelled Fritz from the territory of their free city, making German war upon him. Justice is neither more humane nor more intelligent at Frankfort than elsewhere, albeit that city is the seat of the German Diet. It is but seldom that a magistrate reascends the stream of crimes and misfortunes to ascertain who holds the urn from which escapes the first thread of water. If Brunner forgot his son, the friends of the son imitated the father. Ah! if this history could have been played before the footlights for this audience, in the midst of whom journalists, lions, and some Parisiennes were inquir- ing from whence came the profoundly tragic face of this German, suddenly risen to the surface of the gay world of Paris, on the occasion of a first repre- sentation, alone, in a proscenium box, it would have been a much finer spectacle than the fairy play of La Fiancee du Diable, though that were the two hundred thousandth representation of the. sublime parable played in Mesopotamia, three thousand years before Christ. Fritz traveled on foot to Strasbourg, and there he met with something which the prodigal son of the Bible did not find in the country of Holy Writ. Herein is revealed the superiority of Alsace, where beat so many generous hearts that are born to dem- onstrate to Germans the beauty of a combination of French wit and German solidity. Wilhelm, who had lately come into the inheritance of his father and his mother, was possessed of one 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, dusty, unhappy, and quasi-leprous, encountered on the other bank of the Rhine, a real piece of twenty francs in the hand of a veritable friend, that would be to launch into an ode; a Pindar alone could pour it forth in Greek to humanity, to revive expiring friendship. Put the names of Fritz and Wilhelm with those of Damon and Pythias, of Castor and Pollux, of Orestes and Pylades, of Dubreuil and Pmejah, of Schmucke and Pons, and with all the fancy names which we give to the two friends of Monomotapa, for Lafontaine, man of genius that he was, has made semblances of them, without body, without reality, add these two new names to these illustrations, with all the more reason that Wilhelm ate up his patrimony in company with Fritz, just as (99) 100 THE POOR RELATIONS Fritz had formerly drunk up his with Wilhelm; and smoking at the same time, be it well understood, every known species of tobacco. The two friends, strange to say, swallowed this in- heritance in the beer-shops of Strasbourg, in a man- ner the most stupid and the most vulgar, with the ballet girls of the Strasbourg theatre, and with Alsa- tians, who "of their little brooms had nothing left but the handles." Every morning they said to each other: "We must really pull up and take a stand, and do something with the little that remains to us!" " Bah! one day more," Fritz would exclaim; but to-morrow oh! to-morrow! In the life of the spendthrift, To-day is a great big coxcomb, but To-morrow is a great coward, who takes fright at the courage of his predecessor; To- day is the Captain of the ancient comedy, and To- morrow is the Pierrot of our pantomimes. When they came to their last thousand-franc note, the two friends took their places in that traveling convey- ance, the Messageries, called royal, which conducted them to Paris, where they lodged under the roof of the Hotel du Rhin, Rue de Mail, kept by one Graff, formerly headwaiter with Gedeon Brunner. Fritz secured a situation as clerk, at a salary of six hun- dred francs, with the Keller Brothers, bankers, to whom Graff recommended him. Graff, the propri- etor of the Hotel du Rhin, is the brother of the famous tailor Graff. The tailor took Wilhelm as book-keeper. Graff found these two places for the two prodigal sons in remembrance of his COUSIN PONS 101 apprenticeship at the Hotel de Hollande. These two facts a friend ruined, recognized by a rich friend, and a German inn-keeper interesting himself for two penniless compatriots might lead some people to believe that the present history is a novel, but truth so much resembles fiction, that the fable takes in our day unheard-of pains to resemble truth. Fritz, a clerk at six hundred francs, and Wilhelm, a book-keeper at the same salary, very soon per- ceived the difficulty of living in a city so enticing as Paris. Therefore, during the second year of their sojourn, in 1837, Wilhelm, who possessed a rare talent for the flute, secured a place in the orchestra led by Rons, to be able to earn occasional butter for his bread. As to Fritz, he could find no other supplement to his salary than by displaying the financial capacity of a descendant of the Virlaz. In spite of his assiduity, perhaps because of his very talents, the Frankforter had only reached two thous- and francs in 1843. Poverty, that divine step- mother, did for these two young men that which their own mothers had never been able to accom- plish: she taught them economy, the world, and life; she gave them that great, that stern education which she dispenses with drubbings to all great men all of them unhappy in their youth. Fritz and Wilhelm, being only sufficiently-ordinary mortals, did not give ear to all the lessons of poverty; they struggled against her coercions, they found her bosom hard, her arms fleshless, and they were quite unable to recognize in her that good fairy Urgela, 102 THE POOR RELATIONS who yields to the caresses of men of genius. Nev- ertheless, they learned the full value of money, and they promised themselves to clip its wings if ever it again crossed their threshold. "Well, Papa Schmucke, I will explain it to you in a word," replied Wilhelm, who recounted at full length this history, in German, to the pianist. "The pere Brunner is dead. He was, unknown to his son or to M. Graff, with whom we lodged, one of the first promoters of the Baden railroads, from which he realized immense profits, and he has left four millions! I am playing the flute this evening for the last time. If this were not a first represen- tation, I should have left the theatre several days ago, but I did not wish to fail in my obligations." " Dat ees right, yung man," said Schmucke. " Bud whom aire you going to marry?" " The daughter of M. Graff, our host, the propri- etor of the Hotel du Rhin. I have loved Mademoi- selle milie for seven years. She has read so many immoral romances that she has refused all offers for my sake, without any idea of what might come of it. This young lady will be very rich; she is the only heiress of the Graffs, the tailors of the Rue de Richelieu. Fritz gives me five times the sum that we squandered together at Strasbourg five hundred thousand francs! He puts one million of francs into a banking-house, where M. Graff, the tailor, will place five hundred thousand francs, also; the father of my bride will allow me to invest the dot, which is two hundred and fifty thousand francs, and he COUSIN PONS 103 himself comes in as a sleeping partner with as much more. The house of Brunner, Schwab & Co. will have, then, two million five hundred thousand francs of capital. Fritz has just bought shares to the amount of fifteen hundred thousand francs in the Bank of France, to guarantee our account. This is not all of Fritz's fortune, for he still has his father's houses in Frankfort, which are rated at a million, and he has already leased the Grand Hotel de Hol- lande to a cousin of the Graffs." " You were lookink zorrowfully at your frient," remarked Schmucke, who had been listening to Wilhelm with attention. " Ees it dat you aire uneesy about heem?" " I am uneasy, but it is about the happiness of Fritz," said Wilhelm. " Look at him. Is that the face of a contented man? I am afraid of Paris for him; I would like to see him do as I am doing. The ancient demon may reawaken in him. Of our two heads, it was never his that was the better weighted. That evening dress, that opera glass, is what wor- ries me. He has only looked at the Lorettes in the audience. Ah! if you only knew how difficult it is to persuade Fritz to marry ! he has a horror of what they call in France ' paying court;' and he will have to be launched into family life suddenly, just as in England they launch a man into eternity." During the tumult which breaks forth at the con- clusion of every first representation, the first flute gave his invitation to his orchestra leader. Rons accepted joyfully. Schmucke perceived, for the 104 THE POOR RELATIONS first time in three months, a smile on the face of his friend; he brought him home to the Rue de Nor- mandie in profound silence, for he recognized in that gleam of joy the profundity of the trouble that was devouring Pons. That a man so truly noble, so disinterested, so grand in feeling, should have such weaknesses! this was what stupefied the stoic Schmucke, who had become horribly saddened, for he felt the necessity of renouncing the sight of his " goot Bons " sitting opposite him at table every day, for Rons' 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 Mount Aventine of the Rue de Nor- mandie, had necessarily been noticed by the presi- dent's wife, who, delivered from her parasite, concerned herself but little about him; she thought, as did her charming daughter, that the old man had discovered the trick played by her little Lili; but not so, however, the president. The president, Camusot de Marville, a fat little man grown pompous since his advancement at court, admired Cicero, pre- ferred the Opera-Comique to the Italiens, compared one actor with another, followed the crowd in all things, step by step; he repeated as his own, all the opinions of the ministerial journals, and in rendering judgment paraphrased the ideas of the councilor who had spoken before him. This magistrate, the principal traits of whose character were well known, obliged by his position to take serious views in life, was especially tenacious of family ties. Like most COUSIN PONS 105 husbands who are naturally ruled by their wives, the president asserted in little things an independence which was respected by his wife. If, for a whole month, he had accepted the empty reasons given him by his wife for the disappearance of Pons, he ended by thinking it very singular that the old musician and friend of forty years standing, came no longer to his house, especially after having made so important a gift as the fan of Madame de Pompa- dour. This fan, recognized by Comte Popinot as a chef-d'oeuvre, won for Madame de Marville at the Tuileries, where the treasure was passed from hand to hand, compliments which flattered her vanity excessively; she had pointed out to her the beauties of the ten ivory sticks, each of which showed carv- ings of unheard-of delicacy. A Russian lady the Russians always think they are in Russia offered in the salon of the Comte Popinot, six thousand francs to the president's wife for this extraordinary fan, smiling to see it in such hands, for, it must be ad- mitted, it was the fan of a duchess. " It cannot be denied that our poor cousin under- stands these foolish trifles," said Cecile to her father, the day after this offer was made. " Foolish trifles!" exclaimed the president. "Why, the Government is about to pay three hundred thous- and francs for the collection of the late Monsieur the Councilor Dusommerard, and to spend, in conjunc- tion with the city of Paris, nearly one million, in buying and repairing the H6tel Cluny, to hold these 'foolish treasures.' These 'foolish treasures,' my 106 THE POOR RELATIONS dear child, are frequently the only evidences left us of departed civilizations. An Etruscan pot, a necklace, which are worth sometimes, the one forty, and the other fifty, thousand francs, are the ' foolish trifles ' which reveal to us the perfection of the arts at the time of the siege of Troy, in demonstrating that the Etruscans were Trojans who had taken refuge in Italy!" Such was the style of the pleasantry of the fat little president; he usually took a tone of ponderous irony with his wife and daughter. " The combination of all the varieties of know- ledge which these 'foolish trifles' require, Cecile," he resumed, "is a science that is called archae- ology. Archeology comprises architecture, sculp- ture, painting, goldsmiths' work, keramics, cabinet and ebony work, which is a wholly-modern art, laces, tapestries in short, all the creations of human labor." " Cousin Pons is, then, quite a learned man," said Cecile. "Ah, now, why does he not come here any more?" demanded the president, with the air of a man who is conscious of a commotion produced by a thousand forgotten observations, the sudden re- union of which " packs " things, to borrow a sports- man's expression. "He has probably taken offense at some trifle," replied his wife. " I was not perhaps quite as grate- ful as I should have been for the gift of this fan. I am, as you know, sufficiently ignorant " COUSIN PONS 107 "You! one of Servin's best pupils!" cried the president. "You do not know Watteau?" "I know David, Gerard, Gros, and Girodet, and Guerin, and M. de Forbin, and M.Turpin de Crisse " " You ought to have " "What ought I to have, monsieur? "demanded the president's wife, looking at her husband with the air of the Queen of Sheba. " Known who Watteau is, my dear; he is very much the fashion," replied 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 La Fiancee du Diable, at which the whole orchestra was struck by the feeble health of Pons. Before long, all the families accus- tomed to see Pons at their dinner tables and to send him on their errands, made inquiry about him among themselves, and there diffused itself in the circle in which the good soul usually moved, an uneasiness which was all the greater since several persons saw him at his post in the theatre. Notwithstanding the care with which Pons avoided, in his promenades, his former acquaintances when he met them, he at last came face to face with the former minister, Comte Popinot, in the establishment of Monistrol, one of those illustrious and audacious merchants of the new Boulevard Beaumarchais, formerly men- tioned by Pons to Madame de Marville, and through whose crafty enthusiasm is increased from day to day the prices of curiosities which, as they say, are becoming so rare that there will soon be no more of them to be had. " t My dear Pons, why do we no longer see you?" said Comte Popinot. "We miss you very much, and Madame Popinot does not know what to make of this desertion." "Monsieur le Comte," replied the old man, "I was given to understand in a house, that of a relation, (109) 1 10 THE POOR RELATIONS that at my age, people are de trop in society. I have never been received with much courtesy, but at least I was never insulted. I have never asked anything of anyone," he said, with the pride of the artist. " In return for certain civilities, I have often made myself useful to those who welcomed me; but it appears that I have made a mistake. I am expected to fetch and carry at every one's beck and call, for the honor I receive in dining among my friends, my relations. Well, I have resigned my office of ' poor relation.' At home I find every day that which no table has offered me elsewhere, a true friend." These words, full of a bitterness which the old artist still had the faculty to further enforce by ges- ture and accent, so impressed the peer of France that he took the worthy musician aside. " My old friend, tell me what has happened. Can you not confide to me who it is that has wounded you? 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." "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 if need were." Pons, subjected to the diplomatic tact which Pop- inot had acquired in the manipulation of public affairs, ended by relating his ill-usage in the house of President de Marville. Popinot took up the victim's wrongs so warmly that he went home and COUSIN PONS III told the whole story to Madame Popinot, an excel- lent and worthy woman, who made certain repre- sentations to the president's wife the first time they met each other. The former minister having, on his side, said a few words on the subject to the president, there was a family explanation in the Camusot de Marville household. Though Camusot was not altogether master in his own house, his remonstrances in this case were too well founded on facts and on justice for his wife and his daughter not to recognize their force; both of them admitted the wrong in throwing the blame upon the servants. These latter, called up and reprimanded, obtained their pardon only by full confession, which proved to the president what good reasons Pons had for remaining at home. Like the masters of all house- holds ruled by the wives, the president displayed all his majesty, marital and judicial, in declaring to his domestics that they should all be sent away and lose all the advantages acquired by their long service in his house, if in future his cousin Pons and all those who did him the honor to come to his house, were not treated as well as he himself was. This last remark made Madeleine smile. " 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 your situation in my house depends entirely upon him, for I shall send you all away if he does not forgive you." The next day, the president went off at an early 112 THE POOR RELATIONS hour to pay a visit to his cousin before the open- ing of the court. The appearance of M. le President de Marville, announced by Madame Cibot, was an event. Pons, who received this honor for the first time in his life, foresaw a reparation. "My dear cousin," said the president, after the usual compliments, " I have at last learned the cause of your absence. Your conduct increases, if that were possible, the esteem I feel for you. I shall say but one word to you on this subject. My servants are all dismissed. My wife and daughter are in distress ; they wish to see you and to make an explanation. In all this, my dear cousin, there is only one innocent person and that is an old judge ; do not punish me, then, for the thoughtless- ness of a giddy young girl whose heart was set on dining with the Popinots ; above all, when I come to you to make peace, in admitting that all the fault is on our side. A friendship of thirty- six years, even supposing it changed, has still some 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 present that evening at the marriage of a musician of his orchestra who was about to throw away his flute and become a banker. "Very well, then, to-morrow." " My cousin, Madame le Comtesse Popinot, has done me the honor to invite me by a letter of such cordial kindness " COUSIN PONS 113 " The day after to-morrow, then," resumed the president. " The day after to-morrow, the partner of my first flute, a German, Monsieur Brunner, gives a return party to the bride and bridegroom " " You are well worthy of such contention for the pleasure of receiving you," said the president. "Very well, Sunday next. A week's notice as they say at the Palais." " But that day we dine with M. Graff, the father- in-law of the flute " " Well then, Saturday ! Between now and then you will have time to comfort a little girl who has already shed many tears for her fault. God asked nothing but repentance. Will you, then, be more exacting than the Eternal Father, with this poor little Cecile ?" Pons, taken on his weak side, fell back upon for- mulas that were more than polite, and accompanied the president to the landing of the staircase. An hour later all the servants of the president arrived at the house of the good man Pons. They behaved after the manner of servants, cringing and wheed- ling ; they even wept ! Madeleine took M. Pons apart and threw herself resolutely at his feet. " It was I, monsieur, who did it all, and monsieur knows well that I love him," she said, bursting into tears. ' ' It was to the revenge which made my blood boil, that monsieur must lay all the blame for this miserable business. We shall lose all of our annui- ties ! Monsieur, I was beside myself, and I do not 8 114 THE POOR RELATIONS want my fellow-servants to suffer for my folly. I see now that fate has not destined me for monsieur. I have grown reasonable. I had too much ambition, but I love you always, monsieur. During ten years I have thought of no other happiness than that of making yours and of taking care of you here. What a beautiful fate ! Oh, if monsieur only knew how I love him ! But monsieur must have seen it in all my wickednesses. If I should die to-morrow, what would they find? My will drawn up in your favor Yes, monsieur, in my trunk, under my jewels!" By sounding this chord, Madeleine delivered the old bachelor to those enjoyments of vanity which always come from the knowledge that we have inspired a passion, even when the passion itself is displeasing. After having nobly forgiven Madeleine, he took the whole household back into favor, promis- ing that he would speak to his cousin, the presi- dent's wife, asking her to keep all of them still in her household. Pons saw himself, with an ineffa- ble delight, re-established in all his habitual en- joyments, without having committed any unworthy action. People had come to him, the dignity of his character would be enhanced ; but in explaining his triumph to his friend Schmucke, he had the pain of observing the latter become sad and full of unex- pressed doubts. Nevertheless, at the sight of the sudden change which took place in Pons's counte- nance, the good German ended by rejoicing in the sacrifice of the happiness which he had tasted, of COUSIN PONS 115 having his friend all to himself for nearly four months. The jnoral maladies have one great advantage over the physical ones, they can be cured instantaneously by the fulfillment of the desire which causes them, as they owe their origin to privation. Pons this morning was no longer the same man. The sad, and apparently dying, old man gave place to the satisfied Pons, who had lately carried to the president's wife the fan of the Mar- quise de Pompadour. But Schmucke fell into pro- found reveries over this phenomenon which he could not comprehend ; for genuine stoicism can never explain to itself French social subserviency. Pons was a true Frenchman of the Empire, in whom the gallantry of the last century was united to the devotion to women, so well celebrated in the song " Partant pour la Syrie," and others. Schmucke buried his chagrin in his heart, under the flowers of his German philosophy ; 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." This physician feared an icterus, and he left Madame Cibot overwhelmed by his learned word, the explanation of which is "jaundice." For the first time, perhaps, the two friends dined out together that evening ; but for Schmucke it was like making a trip into Germany. In fact, Johann Graff, the master of the Hotel du Rhin, and his daughter milie ; Wolfgang Graff, the tailor, and his wife ; Fritz Brunner and Wilhelm Schwab, were all Germans. Pons and the notary found themselves Il6 THE POOR RELATIONS the only Frenchmen admitted to the banquet. The tailors, who possessed a magnificent 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 come in contact with the people of all kinds who frequented his hotel. These worthy tailors, who loved this child as if she were their own daughter, gave up the ground floor to the young couple. There, too, was to be established the bank- ing house of Brunner, Schwab & Co. As all these arrangements had been made a month before, in order to give time to come into the possession of the inheritance which had fallen to Brunner, the author of all this felicity, the apartment of the future wedded pair had been richly renovated and furnished by the famous tailor. The counting-rooms of the bank were placed in a wing which connected a magnificent warehouse with the old mansion standing between the court and the garden. As they walked from the Rue de Normandie to the Rue de Richelieu, Rons abstracted from the ab- sent-minded Schmucke the details of this new story of the prodigal son, for whom death had killed the fatted inn-keeper. Rons, just reconciled with his nearest relations, was immediately seized with the desire to marry Fritz Brunner to Cecile de Marville. It so chanced that the notary of the brothers Graff was actually the son-in-law and the successor to Cardot, formerly assistant head-clerk in his office, and with whom Rons had frequently dined. "Ah! is that you, M. Berthier?" said the old musician, extending his hand to his ex-amphitryon. "And why do you no longer give us the pleasure of coming to dine with us?" asked the notary. "My wife was uneasy about you. We saw you at the first representation of La Fiancee du Didble, and our uneasiness was turned into curiosity." "Old men are sensitive," replied Rons, "they have the misfortune of being a century behind the times; but what can be done? it is enough to rep- resent one, they can never belong to that in which they die." "Ah!" said the notary, with a knowing air, "we cannot keep pace with two centuries at once." " Look here!" said the good old man, drawing the young notary into a corner, " why could you not marry my cousin, Cecile de Marville? " ("7) Il8 THE POOR RELATIONS "Ah! why?" replied the notary. "In this cen- tury, when luxury has got down to the lodge of the concierges, the young men hesitate to couple their fate with that of the daughter of the president of the Cour Royale of Paris, when he will only give her a dot of one hundred thousand francs. There is no such thing now-a-days as a wife who costs her husband only three thousand francs a year, in the class to which the husband of Mademoiselle de Marville must belong. The income from such a dot would not pay the expenses of the toilet of such a wife. A bachelor with fifteen to twenty thousand francs of income lives in a pretty entre-sol, the world doesn't require of him any display, he can have only one servant, he puts all his income into his pleasures, he has no other proprieties to consider than those of which his tailor takes charge. Courted by all the designing mothers, he is one of the kings of Parisian fashion. On the contrary, 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 stall; in short, she requires for herself all of that fortune which the unmarried man formerly spent on himself. Suppose a couple with thirty thousand francs of income: as the world now is, the rich bachelor becomes a poor devil who has to consider whether he can afford the price of a ticket to Chantilly. Then come the children, and poverty is felt at once. As M. and Madame de Mar- ville are barely fifty, the expectations have fifteen or twenty years to run; no bachelor cares to carry them COUSIN PONS IIQ in his portfolio for that length of time, and the gan- grene of this calculation is so deep in the heart of all the young rattlepates who dance the polka with the Lorettes at Mabille, that all the marriageable young men study both phases of this problem without needing us notaries to explain it to them. Between ourselves, Mademoiselle de Marville leaves to her pretenders a heart sufficiently calm not to disturb the head, and they all of them have made these anti- matrimonial reflections. If some young man in the enjoyment of his reason and of twenty thousand francs of income draws up for himself in petto a pro- gramme of an alliance that shall satisfy his ambition, Mademoiselle de Marville is so far from filling the bill" "And why?" asked the astonished musician. "Ah!" replied the notary, "to-day almost all these bachelors, even if they are as ill-favored as you and I, my dear Pons, have the impertinence to wish a dot of six hundred thousand francs, a young woman of good family, very handsome, very spirituelle, very well educated, without defects, perfect." " My cousin will then find it difficult to get mar- ried?" " She will remain unmarried just so long as her father and her mother cannot decide to give her Marville for her portion; if they had chosen to do this she would have been Vicomtesse Popinot already. But here is M. Brunner; we are going to read the deed of association for the house of Brunner & Co., and the marriage contract." 120 THE POOR RELATIONS As soon as the introduction and the compliments were over, Pons, invited by the parents to sign the contract, listened to the reading of the deeds, and then about half-past five o'clock the company pro- ceeded to the dining-room. The dinner was one of those sumptuous repasts which the merchants give when they lay aside all thoughts of business; this repast, moreover, testified to the relations which Graff, the master of the Hotel du Rhin, had with the chief caterers of Paris. Never had Pons nor Schmucke known such fare. There were dishes a ravir la pensee pastry of unspeakable delicacy, smelts, incomparably fried, zferra from Geneva with the true Genevese sauce, and a cream for the plum- pudding which would have astonished the famous doctor who, they say, invented it in London. The company rose from the table at ten o'clock in the evening. The amount of Rhine wine and French wine that was consumed would have astonished dandies, for no one knows the quantity of liquid that a German can absorb while sitting calm and tran- quil. You have to dine in Germany and see the bottles succeed one another, as wave succeeds wave on the lovely shore of the Mediterranean, and disappear, as if the Germans had the absorb- ing powers of a sponge or sand; but harmoniously, without the French uproar; the discussion remains as sober as the impromptu of a usurer, the faces flush like those of the fiancees painted in the frescoes of Cornelius or of Schnorr, that is to say, imperceptibly, and the souvenirs rise and spread COUSIN PONS 121 like the smoke of the pipes slowly and deliber- ately. Towards half-past ten, Rons and Schmucke found themselves sitting on a bench in the garden, on either side of their former flute, without knowing in the least how they had got there, or what had led them to explain all the particulars of their charac- ters, their opinions and their misfortunes. In the middle of this pot-pourri of confidences, Wilhelm spoke of his desire to marry off Fritz, with a force- fulness and eloquence quite vinous. " What should you say to this programme for your friend Brunner?" cried Pons in Wilhelm's ear. "A charming young girl, sensible, twenty-four years of age, belonging to a family of the highest distinc- tion, the father occupying one of the most elevated positions, as magistrate, one hundred thousand francs for a dot, and expectations of a million?" " Wait," replied Schwab, " I will go and speak to Fritz about it at once." And the two musicians saw Brunner and his friend promenading up and down in the garden, passing and repassing before their eyes, listening alternately to each other. Pons, whose head felt rather heavy, and who, without being absolutely drunk, had as much lightness in his ideas as he had weight in the organ that contained them, looked at Fritz Brunner through the diaphanous cloud exhaled by wine, and chose to see on his countenance aspirations for family happiness. Schwab shortly presented to M. Pons his friend and associate, who thanked the old 122 THE POOR RELATIONS gentleman cordially for the interest he deigned to take in him. A conversation ensued in which Schmucke and Pons, the two celibates, exalted marriage and allowed themselves, without any malicious meaning, to make the punning statement that "it was the end of man." When the ices, the tea, the punch, and the cakes were served in the new apartment of the bride and groom, the hilarity rose to its highest pitch among these estimable merchants, nearly all of them drunken, at learning that the silent partner of the new banking-house was about to follow the example of his associate. Schmucke and Pons, at two o'clock in the morn- ing, returned home along the boulevards, philoso- phizing to the limits of reason, on the harmony of all things here below. On the morrow Pons went to visit his cousin, the president's wife, full of the profound joy of render- ing good for evil. Poor, dear, noble soul ! Certainly he did indeed attain to the sublime, as every one will agree, for we are now in an age when they give the Montyon prize to those who do their duty and follow the precepts of the Gospel. "Ah! they will feel under immense obligations to their poor relation," said he to himself, as he turned the corner of the Rue de Choiseul. A man less absorbed in his own contentment than Pons, a man of the world, a suspicious man, in re-en- tering this house, would have observed more closely the president's wife and her daughter; but this poor musician was a child, an artist full of simple naivete, COUSIN PONS 123 believing only in moral excellences as he believed in the beautiful in the arts; he was delighted with the caresses which Madame de Marville and her daughter bestowed upon him. This worthy soul, who had seen vaudeville, drama and comedy, played for a dozen years before his eyes, was quite unable to perceive the grimaces of the social comedy, to which without doubt he had become dulled. Those who frequent the Parisian world and who can compre- hend the dryness of body and soul of the presi- dent's wife, eager only for honors and enraged at her own virtue, her hypocritical piety, and the haughtiness of character of a woman accustomed to rule in her own household, may well imagine the hidden hatred she bore for her husband's cousin ever since the day when she had put herself in the wrong. All her demonstrations of friendship and those of her daughter were, then, doubled by a for- midable desire for revenge, evidently set aside for the time being. For the first time in her life, Amelie had been openly to blame in the eyes of her husband, over whom she ruled; and now she was obliged to show herself affectionate to the author of her de- feat! No analogy to this situation can be found, except perhaps in those hypocrisies which endure for years in the secret college of cardinals, or in the chapters of the chiefs of religious orders. At three o'clock, at the hour when the president returned from the Palais, Pons had scarcely finished recount- ing the marvelous incidents of his acquaintance with M. Frederic Brunner, and of the wedding feast of 124 THE POOR RELATIONS the night before, which had not finished till the morning, and of all that concerned the afore- said Frederic Brunner. Cecile had gone straight to the point by inquiring in what manner he dressed this Frederic Brunner, of his figure, of his style, of the color of his hair and his eyes, and when she had conjectured that his appearance was distinguished, she admired the generosity of his character. "To give five hundred thousand francs to his com- panion in misfortune! Oh, mamma, I shall have a carriage and a box at the Italiens!" And Cecile became almost pretty in thinking of the realization of all the pretensions of her mother for her, and of the accomplishment of those hopes of which she had long despaired. As for the president's wife, she only uttered this one word: " My dear little girl, you may be married in a fortnight." All mothers call their daughters, when they are twenty -three years of age, " little girls!" "Nevertheless," said the president, "we must* have time to make inquiries; never will I give my daughter to the first comer " "As for inquiries, it was Berthier who drew up the deeds," replied the old artist. "As to the young man, my dear cousin," he added, turning to Madame de Marville, "you know what you have said to me! Very well. He is over forty years of age and half his head is bald. He wishes to find in a family a haven from the storms of life, and I have not dis- suaded him; all tastes are found in human nature." COUSIN PONS 125 "All the more reason to see M. Frederic Brunner," replied the president. "I do not wish to give my daughter to a valetudinarian." "Very well, my dear cousin," said Pons, still ad- dressing Madame de Marville, " you can judge of my aspirant in five days, if you like; for with your ideas, one interview 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," continued Cousin Pons. "You have never seen my pictures and curiosities: come," said he to his two relatives; "you will be there as two ladies brought by my friend Schmucke, and you can make ac- quaintance with the intended, without being com- promised. Frederic may be kept in perfect ignorance as to who you are." " Excellent!" cried the president. The consideration now showered on the formerly disdained parasite may be imagined. The poor man was on this day indeed, the cousin of the president's wife. The happy mother, sinking her hatred under the waves of her joy, bestowed upon him looks, smiles, words, which sent the good man into an ecstacy at the thought of the good he was doing and of the future which he saw opening before him. Should he not find at the Brunners, the Schwabs, the Graffs, just such dinners as that he had eaten the night before? He saw before him a land flowing with milk and honey, and a marvelous vista of "covered dishes," gastronomic surprises, and exquisite wines. 126 THE POOR RELATIONS " If our cousin Pons brings about this affair," 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," said Madame de Marville. Cecile was commissioned, in case she liked the young man, to make the old musician accept this ignoble munificence. The next day, the president, anxious to have authentic proofs of the fortune of M. Frederic Brun- ner, went to see the notary. Berthier, notified of his coming by Madame de Marville, had sent for his new client, the banker Schwab, the ex-flute. Daz- zled by such an alliance for his friend, it is well known how much the Germans value social distinc- tions! In Germany a woman is Mrs. General, Mrs. Counsellor, 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 Schwab, " as I will give by a deed, all my estate of Marville to my daughter, I should desire to marry her under the dotal system. M. Brunner will invest, then, a million of francs in land to increase the Marville property, and constitute it an immovable settlement which will put the future of my daughter and her children in safety from the uncertainties of a bank." Berthier stroked his chin, reflecting, " He is doing well, M. le President!" Schwab, after getting the dotal system fully ex- plained to him, answered heartily for his friend. This clause promised to accomplish the very thing that he had heard Fritz so much desire, that of securing him against the chance of ever falling back into poverty. (127) 128 THE POOR RELATIONS " There are at this moment about twelve hundred thousands francs' worth of farms and meadow-lands for sale," said the president. "A million in shares of the Bank of France will be quite sufficient," said Schwab, "to guarantee the account of our house at the bank ; Fritz does not wish to put more than two millions in business; he will do what you wish, M. le President." The president rendered his two women almost frantic when he related to them this news. Never had so rich a capture fallen so complaisantly into the conjugal net. "You shall be Madame Brunner de Marville," said the father, "for I will obtain for your husband permission to join this name to his own, and later, he can get letters of naturalization. If I become peer of France he shall succeed me." The president's wife employed five days in pre- paring her daughter. On the day of the interview, she dressed Cecile with her own hands, equipped her with the same care that the admiral of the blue bestows upon the equipment of the pleasure-yacht of the Queen of England when she departs for her voy- age to Germany. On their side, Pons and Schmucke cleaned and dusted the museum, the apartment, and the furni- ture, with the agility of sailors swabbing the deck of an admiral's flag-ship. Not a speck of dust in the wood-carvings. All the brasses shone. The glass over the pastels was cleaned till it gave to view clearly the works of Latour, of Greuze, and of COUSIN PONS 129 Liautard, the illustrious painter of la Chocolattire, the gem of this style of painting, alas! so fugitive. The inimitable enamel of the Florentine bronzes gleamed. The stained glass glowed in its splendid colors. Each treasure sparkled in its own place and uttered its own note to the soul in this concert of masterpieces arranged by these two musicians the one as true a poet as the other. Clever enough to avoid the difficulties of an entrance upon the assembled company, the ladies arrived first; they wished to take possession of the ground. Pons presented his friend Schmucke to his relations, in whose eyes he appeared to be an idiot. Occupied as they were with the prospect of a fiance four times a millionaire, the two ignorant women paid sufficiently slight attention to the artistic elu- cidation of the worthy Pons. They regarded with an indifferent eye, enamels of Petitot, carefully dis- played in three marvelous frames of red velvet. The flower-pieces of Van Huysum and David de Heim, the insects of Abraham Mignon, the Van Eycks, the Albert Diirers, the genuine Cranachs, the Giorgione, the Sebastien del Piombo, Back- huysen, Hobbema, and Gericault. All these mar- vels of painting did not even excite their curiosity, for they were waiting for the sun which was to light up all this richness; nevertheless they were surprised at the beauty of some Etruscan jewels and the real value of the snuff-boxes. They were enthusing, for politeness, over some Florentine bronzes which they held in their hands at the 9 130 THE POOR RELATIONS moment Madame Cibot announced M. Brunner! They refrained from turning around, but they took advantage of a superb Venice glass framed in a huge mass of carved ebony, to examine this phoenix of matrimonial aspirants. Frederick, warned by Wilhelm, had brushed together in a mass the few hairs that remained to him. He wore a handsome pair of pantaloons of a soft, though dark shade, a silk waistcoat of supreme elegance and of a new cut, an openwork linen shirt of the finest linen, made by hand in Holland, and a blue cravat figured 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 had cut it him- self out of his very finest cloth. A pair of gants de Sudde proclaimed the man who had already squan- dered the fortune of his mother. From the polish of his varnished boots it was easy to guess at the little coupe and the two horses of the banker standing before the door in the street below, even if the ears of the two women had not already heard the rolling of its wheels in the Rue de Normandie. When the rake of twenty is the chrysalis of a banker, he develops at forty into so keen an ob- server, that Brunner had already learned of the ad- vantage that a German can obtain by his apparent simplicity. He had assumed, for this morning, the reflective air of a man who is deciding between family life to be possibly assumed, or the dissipa- tions of a bachelor to be continued. Such an ex- pression in a Gallicized German seemed to Cecile COUSIN PONS 131 the superlative of the romantic. She saw another Werther in the descendant of the Virlaz. Where is the young girl who cannot make her own little romance out of the history of her marriage? Cecile thought herself the happiest of women when Brunner grew enthusiastic before the magnificent works of art collected during forty years of patience, and estimated them for the first time at their real value, to the huge satisfaction of Pons. " He is a poet," said Mademoiselle de Marville to herself. "There are millions of ideas for him in these things." Now, a poet is a man who does not calculate, who leaves his wife mistress of his for- tune, a man easy to lead and who occupies himself with fooleries. Every pane in the two windows in the old room was of Swiss stained glass, the least valuable of which was worth one thousand francs, and there were sixteen of these chefs-d'oeuvre, in the search of which amateurs travel far and near now-a-days. In 1815, this glass could be bought for from six to ten francs. The worth of the sixty paintings alone, contained in this rare collection, all of them pure masterpieces, never retouched, perfectly authentic, could not be ascertained except in the heat of the competition of a public sale. Enclosing each picture was a frame of an immense value showing speci- mens of every workmanship, the Venetian, with its heavy ornamentation similar to that of the present English silverware; the Roman frame, so remarkable for that which artists call theflafla; the Spanish frame 132 THE POOR RELATIONS with its bold leafage; the Flemish and German with their naive figures; the frames of tortoise-shell inlaid with copper, with brass, with mother-of-pearl or ivory; the frame of ebony, the frame in box-wood, the frame in brass, the frames of Louis XIII., XIV., XV., and XVI. 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 Brustolone, the Michael Angelo of wood-carving. Mademoiselle de Marville very naturally asked for explanations about each new treasure. She made Brunner initiate her into the knowledge of these marvels. And she was so artless in her exclama- tions, she appeared so delighted to learn from Fred- eric the value, the beauty of a painting, of a carving, of a bronze, that the German thawed out, his face became really youthful. In short, on both sides, they went somewhat further than was intended at this first interview, especially as it was supposed to be accidental. This meeting lasted three hours. Brunner offered his hand to Cecile, to assist her down the staircase. In descending the steps with judicious slowness, Cecile, still conversing on the fine arts, expressed her surprise at the enthusiasm of her admirer for the knick-knacks of her cousin Pons. "You really think, then, that what we have just seen is worth a great deal of money?" "Ah! mademoiselle, if monsieur your cousin would only offer to sell me his collection, I would give him COUSIN PONS 133 for it this very evening eight hundred thousand francs, and I should not be making a bad bargain. The sixty pictures alone would bring more at a public sale." " I believe it, since you tell me so," she replied. "And it must be true, because it is for such things that you chiefly care." "Oh, mademoiselle!" exclaimed Brunner, "for my sole reply to that reproach, I am going to ask of madame your mother the permission to present myself at her house in order to have the happiness of seeing you again." "How clever she is, my little girl!" thought the president's wife, who was following at the heels of her daughter. "With the greatest pleasure, monsieur," she said aloud. " I hope that you will come with our cousin Rons at the dinner hour. My husband, the presi- dent, will be delighted to make your acquaintance. Thank you, cousin." She pressed the arm of Pons so significantly that the sacramental phrase, " We are one for life and death!" would scarcely have seemed more binding. She actually embraced Pons with the glance that accompanied this "thank you, cousin." After putting the young lady into the coach, and when it had disappeared around the corner of the Rue Chariot, Brunner talked bric-a-brac to Pons, who talked marriage. " So you don't see any objections?" said Pons. "Ah!" replied Brunner, "the girl is insignificant, the mother is a little affected, we will see about it." 134 THE POOR RELATIONS "There is a fine fortune to come," replied Rons, " more than a million " " Next Monday, then," interrupted the millionaire. " If you should wish to sell your collection of pic- tures, I am ready to give you five or six hundred thousand francs " "Ah!" cried the old man, who did not know he was so rich; " but I could not separate myself from that which makes my happiness. I could only sell my collection to be delivered after my death." "Very well, we will see " " There are two affairs going," thought the col- lector, though it was only the marriage which inter- ested him. Brunner saluted Pons and disappeared, carried off by his elegant equipage. Pons watched the depart- ure of the little coupe, without noticing Remonencq, who was smoking on the threshold of his door. The same evening, at the house of her father-in- law, whom Madame de Marville had gone to con- sult, she found the Popinot family. In her desire to satisfy a small vengeance very natural in the hearts of mothers when they have notsucceeded-in captur- ing the son and heir of a family, the president's wife let it be understood that Cecile was about to make a splendid marriage. " Who is Cecile going to marry, then?" went from lip to lip. And then, not intending to betray her secrets, the president's wife gave so many hints, whispered so many con- fidences, which were confirmed, it may be said, by Madame Berthier, that this is what was said COUSIN PONS 135 the next morning in all that bourgeois empy- rean in which Rons accomplished his gastronomic evolutions: " Cecile de Marville is going to marry a young German who has made himself a banker out of pure generosity, for he is worth four millions; he is a hero of romance, a perfect Werther, charming, kind- hearted, having sown his wild oats, and is distract- edly in love with Cecile; it is a love at first sight, and all the more marked because Cecile had for rivals all the painted Madonnas collected by her cousin Pons," etc., etc. The succeeding day several persons called to com- pliment the president's wife, solely to ascertain if the golden goose really existed, and Madame de Marville executed a series of admirable variations on the theme, which mothers might profitably consult, as in former days people consulted the " Complete Letter-Writer:" " No marriage is actually made," she said to Madame Chiffreville, " until you get back from the Mairie and the church, and so far the matter has not gone beyond the preliminaries; so that I depend upon your friendship not to speak of our hopes " " You are most fortunate, Madame le President; marriages are made with great difficulty now-a-days. ' ' "Ah! it was all done by accident; but marriages are often made in that way." " So you are really going to marry Cecile?" said Madame Cardot. "Yes," replied the president's wife, who fully 136 THE POOR RELATIONS comprehended the spitefulness of the "really." "We were particular and it was that which delayed Cecile 's establishment. But we have found all we wanted, fortune, amiability, good character, and good looks. My dear little girl deserves them all, for that matter. Monsieur Brunner is a charming young man, very distinguished; he loves luxury, he knows life, he adores Cecile, he loves her sincerely; and notwithstanding his three or four millions, Cecile accepts him. We did not really expect so much, but such advantages are not to be despised " " It is not so much the fortune as the affection inspired by my daughter which has influenced us," she said to Madame Lebas. " Monsieur Brunner is so eager that he wishes the marriage to take place without any other delays than the legal ones." " He is a stranger? " "Yes, madame; but I frankly admit that I am glad of it. No, it is not a son-in-law, it is a son that I shall have. M. Brunner is of a delicacy that is really delightful. You cannot think with what readiness he agreed to marry under the dotal system that is a great security for families. He purchases for twelve hundred thousand francs the meadow- lands which will some day be reunited toMarville." The day after, there were fresh variations on the same theme. Then M. Brunner was a grand seign- eur, doing everything en grand seigneur ; he never counted costs; and if M. de Marville could obtain for him special letters of naturalization, and the government clearly owed the president that little COUSIN PONS 137 bit of patronage, the son-in-law would become a peer of France. The exact amount of his fortune was not known, but he had " most beautiful horses and the finest equipage in all Paris," etc. The pleasure that the Camusots took in proclaim- ing their hopes said only too plainly that this triumph had been unhoped for. Immediately after the interview in the apart- ments of Cousin Pons, the president, prompted by his wife, invited the Minister of Justice, his first president, and the procureur general to dine with him on the day of the presentation of the phoenix of sons-in-law. The three great personages accepted, although invited at short notice; for each understood the part that he was expected to play by the father of the family, and they readily came to his assist- ance. In France people are always very willing to help those mothers of families who fish for rich sons- in-law. The Comte and Comtesse Popinot also lent their presence to complete the glory of this occasion, although the invitation seemed to them in bad taste. There were in all eleven persons. Cecile's grandfather, the old Camusot, and his wife, were of course not absent from this reunion, which was intended, through the distinguished position of the guests, to definitely commit M. 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" the future rival of the Nucingens, the Kellers, the du Tillets, etc. " It is our family-day," said Madame de Marville, with well-studied simplicity, to him whom she already regarded as her son-in-law in naming to him the other guests, " we have only our intimates. First, (139) 140 THE POOR RELATIONS the father of my husband who, as you know, has been promised a peerage; then M. le Comte and Madame le Comtesse Popinot, whose son was not quite rich enough for Cecile; but we are none the less good friends; the Minister of Justice, the first president, the procureur general, in short, all our friends. We shall be obliged to dine a little later than usual because of the Chamber, where the sit- tings never finish before six o'clock." Brunner looked significantly at Pons, and Pons rubbed his hands, as if to say, "Such are our friends, my friends! " The president's wife, like a clever woman, had something particular to say to her cousin, so as to leave Cecile te'te-a-te'te for a moment with her Werther. Cecile chattered a good deal and man- aged to let Frederic see a German dictionary and German grammar, and a Goethe, which she had hidden. "Ah! you were studying German," said Brunner, coloring. It takes a French woman to lay such traps. "Oh!" said she, "aren't you wicked! It is not fair, monsieur, to spy into my hiding-places. I do wish to read Goethe in the original," she added, " and I have studied German for the last two years." " You must find the grammar very difficult, very hard to understand, for I see you have cut only ten pages," remarked Brunner, naively. Cecile confused, turned aside to hide her blushes. A German never resists such witnesses. He COUSIN PONS 141 took Cecile by the hand and brought her round, all abashed under his regard, and looked at her as do the betrothed in the romances of August Lafon- taine, of modest memory. "You are adorable," said he. Cecile made a coquettish little gesture which sig- nified, "And you, then, who would not love you?" " Mamma, all goes well!" she said in the ear of her mother, who returned with Pons. The aspect of a family on such an evening as this is not to be described. Everyone was pleased to see a mother able to lay her hand on a good mar- riage for her daughter. They congratulated, with words ambiguous or with a double-barreled meaning, Brunner, who feigned to understand nothing, and Cecile, who understood everything, and the presi- dent, who went about collecting compliments. All the blood of Pons rang in his ears, and he fancied he saw all the footlights of his theatre dance before him when Cecile told him in a low voice and in a most ingenious manner of her father's intentions as to the annuity of twelve hundred francs, which the old artist refused positively, giving as a reason the revelation which Brunner had made to him of the real value of his collection. The Minister, the first president, the procureur general, the Popinots, all the business personages, departed. There remained only the old Camusot and Cardot, the former notary, assisted by his son- in-law Berthier. The worthy Pons, seeing himself now in the bosom of his family, thanked, very 142 THE POOR RELATIONS awkwardly, M. and Madame de Marville for the offer which Cecile had just made to him. Affectionate people are all alike, always ready to yield to their first impulse. Brunner, who saw in this offer some- thing like a bribe, felt within him a sudden return to Israelitish traits, and assumed an attitude which denoted the more than cold reverie of a calculator. "My collection or its value will be sure to belong some day to your family, whether I sell it to our friend Brunner, or whether I keep it," said Pons, revealing to the astonished family that he was pos- sessed of articles of so great value. Brunner observed the revulsion of feeling shown by all these uninformed people toward a man who had just passed from a state of indigence to one of wealth, just as he had already observed the little spoilings of Cecile, the idol of the household, by her father and mother, and he conceived a sudden desire to excite still further the surprise and the exclama- tions of these worthy bourgeois. " I said to mademoiselle that the pictures of M. Pons were worth that sum to me; but at the price which works of art have now attained, no one would be able to foresee the value which this collection might bring at a public sale. The sixty pictures alone would bring a million. I saw several among them worth fifty thousand francs each." 4< It would be well worth while to be your heir," said the former notary to Pons. " But my heir, that is my cousin Cecile," returned the old man, still clinging to his relationship. COUSIN PONS 143 A murmur of admiration for the old musician ran through the room. "She will be a very rich heiress," said Cardot, laughing as he took leave. Old Camusot, the father, the president and his wife, Cecile, Brunner, Berthier, and Pons, were thus left together; for it was supposed that the formal demand for the hand of Cecile would now be made. In fact, as soon as they were alone, Brunner com- menced by a question which appeared to the parents of good augury. "I am led to believe," said he, addressing Mad- ame de Marville, "that mademoiselle is an only daughter " "Certainly," she answered proudly. "You will have no difficulty with any one," said the good Pons, in order to bring Brunner to the point of formulating his demand. Brunner became thoughtful, and a fatal silence spread through the room the strangest chill. It seemed as if the president's wife had admitted that her " little girl " was an epileptic. The president, feeling that his daughter ought not to be present, made her a sign, which Cecile understood and left the room. Brunner remained silent. The others looked at each other. The situation became embar- rassing. The old Camusot, a man of experience, led the German into Madame de Marville's bed-room under pretence of showing him the fan which Pons had discovered, and, judging that some difficulty had arisen, he made a sign to his son and his 144 THE POOR RELATIONS daughter-in-law, and Pons, to leave him alone with the future son-in-law. " Here is this masterpiece," said the old silk mer- chant, showing the fan. "That is worth at least five thousand francs," said Brunner, after having examined it. " Have you not come here, monsieur," said the future peer of France, "to ask the hand of my grand-daughter?" "Yes, monsieur," said Brunner, "I beg you to believe that no alliance could be more flattering to me. I shall never find a young lady more lovely, more amiable, and who would suit me better than Mademoiselle Cecile; but " "Ah, there must be no buts!" said the old Cam- usot, "or at least let me know at once the reason of yours, my dear sir." "Monsieur," replied Brunner gravely, "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 precious in the eyes of the world, excepting mine, and of which I was in ignorance, believe me, is to me an insurmountable objection " "How, monsieur?" said the old man, stupefied, "of so great an advantage make you a defect? Your conduct is most extraordinary, and I should much like to know your reasons for it." "Monsieur," replied the German stolidly, "I came here this evening with the intention of asking of Monsieur le President the hand of his daughter. I wished to give to Mademoiselle Cecile a brilliant COUSIN PONS 145 future in offering her all that she would consent to accept of my fortune; but an only daughter is a spoiled child who, through the indulgence of her parents, has been accustomed to having her own way, and who has never known opposition. It is here as it is in several other families in which I have formerly been able to observe the worship enter- tained for this species of divinity; not only is your grand-daughter the idol of the house, but even more, Madame le President wears in it you know what! Monsieur, I saw my father's house become from this cause, a hell. My step-mother, the cause of all my troubles, an only daughter, adored, the most charm- ing of brides, became a devil incarnate. I have no doubt that Mademoiselle Cecile is an exception to my rule; but I am no longer a young man, I am forty years old, and the difference between our ages will occasion difficulties which will not enable me to render happy a young lady accustomed to see her mother do entirely as she likes, to whom that mother listens as if to an oracle. What right have I to re- quire of Mademoiselle Cecile a change in all her ideas and habits? In the place of a father and mother, indulging her least caprices, she would encounter the egotism of a forty-year-old man; if she resisted, it would be the forty-year-old man who would be vanquished. I, therefore, behave like a man of honor, I withdraw. But I wish to take all the blame of this rupture upon myself, and if it is necessary to explain why I have made only one visit here" 10 146 THE POOR RELATIONS "If these are your reasons, monsieur," said the future peer of France, "however singular they may be, they are certainly plausible " "Monsieur, do not doubt my sincerity," said Brunner, interrupting him eagerly. " If you know some poor girl, one of a large family of children, well-educated, without fortune, of which there are so many in France, and if her character is such as to justify my offers, I will marry her." During the silence which followed this declaration, Frederic Brunner left the grandfather of Cecile, went back and saluted politely the president and the president's wife, and withdrew. A living commen- tary upon the escape of her Werther, Cecile ap- peared as pale as death; hidden in her mother's wardrobe, she had heard every word. "Refused!" she whispered in her mother's ear. "Why .-"'demanded Madame deMarville, address- ing her embarrassed father-in-law. "On the fine pretence that only daughters are spoiled children," replied the old man. "And he is not altogether wrong," added he, seizing an oppor- tunity to blame his daughter-in-law, who had been worrying him for the last twenty years. "My daughter will die of it! You have killed her!" said the president's wife to Rons, supporting 'her daughter, who thought it becoming to justify these words by sinking into her mother's arms. The president and his wife carried Cecile to a sofa, where she completely fainted away. The grandfather rang for the servants. COUSIN PONS 147 " I see the plot he has hatched!" said the furious mother, pointing to poor Pons. Rons started up as if he had heard in his ears the trumpets of the last judgment. " He was determined," continued the president's wife, whose eyes were like two fountains of green bile, " to repay an innocent jest by an insult. Who will ever believe that this German is in his right senses? Either he is an accomplice in an atrocious revenge, or he is crazy. I hope, Monsieur Pons, that in the future you will spare us the annoyance of seeing you in this house, to which you have tried to bring shame and dishonor." Pons, turned to a statue, stood with his eyes on a pattern of the carpet, twirling his thumbs. "What! you are still there, monster of ingrati- tude!" cried the president's wife, turning round. "We are never at home, your master nor I, when- ever monsieur calls again!" said she to the servants, indicating Pons to them. " Go and fetch the doctor, Jean, and you, Madeleine, get some hartshorn!" For the president's wife, the reasons alleged by Brunner were only a mere pretence to hide some hidden motives; but the breaking-off of the mar- riage was only the more certain. With the rapidity of thought which distinguishes women under ex- treme circumstances, Madame de Marville had found the only way of repairing the damage of such a defeat, by attributing it to premeditated vengeance on the part of Pons. This scheme, infernal as far as it concerned Pons, would redeem the honor of the 148 THE POOR RELATIONS family. Through her hatred of the old man she had made of a mere female suspicion, a fact. Women in general have a particular creed, a morality of their own; they believe in the reality of everything that serves their interests and their passions. The presi- dent's wife went still further, she persuaded her husband in the course of the evening to believe as she did, and by the next morning the magistrate was fully convinced of the culpability of his cousin. Every one will think the conduct of the president's wife horrible; but under similar circumstances every mother would imitate Madame Camusot. She would much rather sacrifice the honor of a stranger than that of her daughter. The methods would change, but the object would be the same. The musician descended the staircase rapidly; but his step was slow along the boulevards to the the- atre, which he entered mechanically; he mounted his chair mechanically, and he directed mechani- cally the orchestra. Between the acts he answered Schmucke so vaguely that the latter hid his fears; he thought that Rons had lost his mind. To a nature so child-like as that of Pons, the scene which had just occurred took the proportions of a catastrophe. To have aroused such a frightful hatred, where he meant to bestow happiness, it was a total overthrow of his existence. He had recognized in the eyes, the gestures, the voice, of Madame de Mar- ville, an implacable enmity. The next day Madame Camusot de Marville reached a great determination, exacted by circum- stances, and in which the president agreed. They resolved to give Cecile as a dot the Marville estate, the hotel in the Rue de Hanovre, and one hundred thousand francs. In the course of the morning, the president's wife went to call on the Comtesse Pop- inot, perceiving plainly that the only way to repair such a defeat was by an immediate marriage. She related the shocking vengeance and the frightful deception perpetrated by Pons. The story seemed plausible to the Popinots as soon as they heard that the reason given for this rupture was the character (149) 150 THE POOR RELATIONS of an only daughter. In short, the president's wife dwelt skilfully on the brilliant advantages of being styled Popinot de Marville and the enormity of the dot. At the price of land in Normandy, where it brings in two per cent, this estate represented about nine hundred thousand francs, and the Hotel of the Rue de Hanovre was valued at two hundred and fifty thousand. No reasonable family could decline such an alliance; therefore, the Comte Popinot and his wife accepted it; then, being interested in the honor of the family into which they were now entering, they promised their concurrence in explaining the catastrophe of the previous evening. Soon after, at the house of the same old Camusot, grandfather of Cecile, before the same persons who had been there a few days previously, and before whom the president's wife had chanted her Brunner litanies, this same president's wife, to whom every one feared to speak, bravely took the lead in explanations. "Really in these days," she said, "it would be impossible to take too many precautions in arrang- ing a marriage, and above all, when you have to do with foreigners." "Why so, madame?" "What has happened to you?" inquired Madame Chiffreville. "You have not heard of our adventure with that Brunner who had the audacity to aspire to the hand of Cecile? He is the son of a German COUSIN PONS 151 inn-keeper, the nephew of a dealer in rabbit skins." "Is it possible? and you so cautious!" said a lady. " These adventurers are so clever! But we have learned all through Berthier. This German has for friend a poor devil who plays the flute! He is con- nected with a man who keeps a common lodging- house in the Rue du Mail, with some tailors. We have learned that he has led a vulgar life, and no fortune would suffice to a rogue who has already squandered that of his mother " "Well! mademoiselle, your daughter, would have been very unhappy!" said Madame Berthier. " How did he happen to be presented to you?" inquired old Madame Lebas. " It was a piece of revenge on the part of M. Pons ; he presented this fine gentleman to us in order to overwhelm us with ridicule. This Brunner, which means 'fountain,' he was represented to us as a great lord is in bad health, bald, with bad teeth ; so that it was enough for me to see him only once to become suspicious of him." " But that great fortune of which you spoke to me?" said a young woman timidly. " The fortune is not so large as they said it was. The tailors, the lodging-house man, and he have scraped together all they possess to start a banking- house. What is a banking-house to-day when it commences? A mere opportunity for ruin. A woman who goes to bed a millionaire may wake up reduced 152 THE POOR RELATIONS to her own means. As soon as he spoke, at the first sight we formed our opinions of this gentleman, who knows nothing of our customs. You could see by his gloves, by his waistcoat, that he was a work- man, the son of a German cook-shop keeper, with- out nobility of feeling, a beer drinker, and who smokes! ah, madame, fancy! twenty -five pipes a day! What would have been the fate of my poor Lili! I still shudder at it, but God has preserved us! Moreover, Cecile did not like this man. Could we have suspected such a scheme on the part of a rela- tive, of a constant visitor to our house, who has dined with us twice a week for the last twenty years! whom we have loaded with benefits and who kept up the farce so well that he actually announced Cecile as his heiress before the keeper of the seals, the procureur general, the first president! This Brunner and M. Pons were in league to make each other out as worth millions! No, I assure you, all of you ladies, you would have been taken in by this deception, planned as it was by artists." In a few weeks the reunited families of Popinot and Camusot and their adherents, had won an easy victory before the world, for no one took up the defense of the miserable Pons, the parasite, the dis- sembler, the niggard, the pretended good friend, now buried under contempt, regarded as a viper warmed in the bosom of families, like a man of ex- traordinary wickedness, a dangerous buffoon, to be forgotten as soon as possible. About a month after the rejection of the false COUSIN PONS 153 Werther, poor Pons left for the first time his bed, where he had been lying a prey to nervous fever, and walked slowly along the boulevards in the sun, lean- ing on the arm of Schmucke. On the Boulevard du Temple nobody any longer laughed at the two Nut- crackers, at the aspect of destruction in one and of the touching solicitude of the other for his convales- cent friend. By the time they had reached the Boulevard Poissonniere, Pons had recovered a little color as he breathed the atmosphere of the boule- vards where the air has such a stimulating quality; for wherever a crowd congregates this fluid is so life- giving that in Rome the absence of mala aria has been remarked in the filthy Ghetto swarming with Jews. Perhaps also, the sight of that which heretofore gave him daily pleasure, the grand spectacle of Paris, may have had its effect upon the invalid. In front of the Theatre des Varietes, Pons left Schmucke, for they had been walking side by side; but the convalescent quitted his friend from time to time to examine the novelties freshly exhibited in the shop- windows. He came suddenly face to face with Comte Popinot whom he greeted in the most respectful manner, the former minister being one of those men whom Pons esteemed and venerated most. "Ah, monsieur," said the peer of France se- verely, "I am unable to understand how you could have so little tact as to bow to a person allied to the family you have attempted to cover with shame and ridicule by a revenge which none but an artist could have concocted. Know, monsieur, that from this 154 THE POOR RELATIONS day forth you and I are complete strangers to each other. Madame la Comtesse Popinot shares the indignation with which the world regards your con- duct to the Marvilles." The former minister passed on, leaving Pons overwhelmed. Never do the passions of men, nor justice, nor politics, never do the great social powers consider the state of the being whom they strike. The statesman, driven by family interest, to crush Pons, had not observed the physical weakness of that redoubtable enemy. " Vat ees der madder, mein boor frent?" asked Schmucke, growing as pale as his friend himself. "I have just received another stroke with the dagger, in the heart," replied the old man, support- ing himself on Schmucke's arm. " I believe that no one but the good God has the right to do good, that is why those who meddle with His work are so cruelly punished." This sarcasm of an artist was a supreme effort on the part of the excellent creature who wished to chase away the terror which he saw on the face of his friend. "I dink zo," replied Schmucke, simply. All this was incomprehensible to Pons, to whom neither the Camusots nor the Popinots had sent any information of Cecile's marriage. On the Boulevard des Italiens, Pons saw coming towards him Monsieur Cardot. Warned by the allocution of the peer of France, he was careful not to stop this personage with whom, for a year past, he dined every COUSIN PONS 155 fortnight, and merely bowed to him; but the mayor, the deputy of Paris, looked at Pons with an indig- nant air, without returning his salutation. " Go and ask him what it is they have against me," said the old man to Schmucke, who knew in all its details the catastrophe that had happened to Pons. " Mennesir," said Schmucke to Cardot, diplomat- ically, " mein frent Bons ees regovered from an eel- ness ant zo berhaps you gannot regognize heem." "I recognize him perfectly." " Denn vot haf you all against heem?" "You have for friend a monster of ingratitude, a man who, if he still lives, it is because, as the proverb says, ' ill weeds thrive in spite of every- thing.' The world has good reason to be mistrust- ful of artists, they are malicious and spiteful as monkeys. Your friend endeavored to dishonor his own family, to destroy the reputation of a young girl, in revenge for a harmless jest. I do not wish to have the slightest relation with him ; I shall endeavor to forget that I have ever known him, that he even exists. These sentiments, monsieur, are those of all my family, of his, and of all those persons who formerly offered to the Sieur Pons the honor of receiving him in their houses " " Bud, mennesir, you are ein reazonaple man ; zo eef you vill bermit me I vill exblain der madder for you " "Remain his friend yourself, monsieur, if you can still find it in your heart to do so. It is free to 156 THE POOR RELATIONS you," replied Cardot ; "but go no further, for I warn you that I shall include in the same condem- nation all those who endeavor to excuse him and to defend him." " I joustivy heem?" "Yes, for his conduct is unjustifiable as it cannot be qualified." With these sentiments, the deputy of the Seine continued his route without wishing to hear another syllable. " I have already the two powers of the State against me, "said poor Pons, smiling, when Schmucke had related to him the savage denunciation. "Eferyding ees against us," answered Schmucke mournfully. " Led us go home; zo vill ve meed no more vools." It was the first time in his life, truly lamb-like, that Schmucke had ever uttered such words. Never had his meekness, almost divine, before been troubled; he would have smiled simply at every misfortune that had happened to him; but to see his sublime Pons ill-treated, that unrecognized Aristides, that modest genius, that soul without bitterness, that treasure of loving kindness, that heart of pure gold! He felt all the indignation of Alceste, and he called the amphi- tryons of Pons "fools!" In his placid nature such emotion was equivalent to all the furies of Roland. With wise precaution he now made Pons return to- ward the Boulevard du Temple; and Pons allowed himself to be led; for the sick man was now in the condition of those wrestlers who can no longer count COUSIN PONS 157 the blows. Fate, however, willed that nothing should be lacking in the world to the calamity of the poor musician. The avalanche that rolled over him was to contain everything, the Chamber of Peers, the Chamber of Deputies, his family, strangers, the strong, the weak, and the innocent! On the Boulevard Poissonniere, in returning home, Pons saw coming toward him, the daughter of this same M. Cardot, a young woman who had gone through enough trouble of her own to make her merciful. Guilty of a fault kept secret, she had made herself the slave of her husband. Of all the mistresses in the houses in which he dined, Madame Berthier was the only one whom Pons ventured to address by her Christian name; he called her " Felicie," and sometimes fancied that she really understood him. This gentle creature seemed annoyed at meeting her cousin Pons; for, notwithstanding the absence of any relationship with the family of the second wife of his cousin, the old Camusot, he was always treated as cousin. Not being able to avoid him, Felicie Berthier stopped short before the dying man. " I do not think you wicked, my cousin, but if a quarter only of what I have heard is true, you are a base man. Oh! don't defend yourself," she added hastily, seeing Pons make a gesture. "It is useless for two reasons: the first is that I have no right to accuse, nor to judge, nor to condemn any one, know- ing in myself that those who seem to be the most to blame have excuses to offer; secondly, because 158 THE POOR RELATIONS your reasons will do no good. M. Berthier, who has drawn up the marriage-contract between Mademoi- selle de Marville and the Vicomte Popinot, is so irri- tated against you that if he knew that I had said a single word to you, though it were for the last time, he would rebuke me. Every one is against you." " I see it very plainly, madame," answered, in a broken voice, the poor old musician, bowing respect- fully to the notary's wife. And he resumed painfully his road to the Rue de Normandie, leaning on the arm of Schmucke so heavily as to betray to the old German his physical weakness, bravely combated. This third encounter was like the judgment pronounced by the Lamb which lies at the feet of God; the wrath of that angel of the poor, the symbol of the people, is the last word of heaven. The two friends reached home without having exchanged a word. In certain circumstances of life we can do no more than feel a friend at our side. Spoken consolation irritates the wound, it reveals its depths. The old pianist had, as we have seen, the genius of friendship, the delicacy of those who have suffered much, who know the habits of that suffering. This promenade was to be the last ever taken by the worthy Rons. The sick man fell from one illness into another. Naturally of a bilious-sanguine tem- perament, the bile now passed into his blood and he was seized with a violent inflammation of the liver. These two successive attacks being the only illnesses of his life, he knew no doctor; and with an intention that was excellent in the first instance, and even maternal, the sensible and devoted Madame Cibot called in the doctor of the quarter. At Paris, in every "quarter," there is a doctor whose name and residence are unknown to any but the lower class, the small bourgeois, the concierges, and who is con- sequently known as the doctor of the quarter. This physician who attends to childbirths and to bleeding the neighborhood, is in medicine that which is in the " Petites Affiches" the domestique pour tout faire, the servant of all work. Compelled to be good to the poor and sufficiently expert by reason of his long practice, he is generally beloved. Doctor Poulain, brought to the sick man by Madame Cibot, and recognized by Schmucke, listened without paying much attention to the complaints 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 symptom. (159) 160 THE POOR RELATIONS " You have had within the last two days some great trouble," said the doctor to his patient. "Alas! yes," answered Pons. " You have the disease which monsieur here has just escaped," said the doctor, pointing to Schmucke; "the jaundice, but it will not amount to anything," he added, writing a prescription. Notwithstanding this last word, so consoling, the doctor had given the sick man one of those Hippo- cratic glances in which the sentence of death, although concealed under the customary commisera- tion, may be always divined by those eyes which are interested in knowing the truth. Thus Madame Cibot, who darted a searching glance into the eyes of the doctor, was not misled by the tone of the professional words nor by the deceptive physiog- nomy of Doctor Poulain, and she followed him when he left the room. "Do you really think it will be nothing?" she said to the doctor on the landing. "My dear Madame Cibot, your monsieur is a dead man, not because of the invasion of his blood by his bile, but because of his moral feebleness. How- ever, with a great deal of care, your sick man might still pull through; he would have to be taken away from here, to be induced to travel " "And on what?" said the concierge. "He has no money but his salary, and his friend lives on a bit of an annuity which some great ladies have given him, to whom he has, it is understood, done some service, some very charitable ladies. They are COUSIN PONS l6l only two children whom I have taken care of for the last nine years." " I have spent my life in seeing people die, not of their illnesses, but of that great and incurable wound, the want of money. In how many garrets have I been obliged, far from being paid for my visit, to leave a hundred sous on the mantelpiece! " "Poor, dear Monsieur Poulain," said Madame Cibot. "Ah! if you had only got the one hundred thousand livres of income of some of the skinflints of this quarter, who are nothing better nor devils let loose, you would be the very image of the good God on earth!" The doctor who, thanks to the good will of MM. the concierges of his arrondissement, had succeeded in getting together a little practice which scarcely suf- ficed his needs, raised his eyes to heaven and thanked Madame Cibot with an expression worthy of Tar- tuff e. " You say, then, my dear M. Poulain, that with a great deal of care, our patient may get over it?" " Yes, if he is not too much affected in his moral system by the trouble which he has experienced." " Poor man, what can have troubled him? There ain't no better than he, who has no equal on earth except his friend, M. Schmucke! I'll find out what's upset him! and it's I who will see that they get well drubbed who have bled my gentleman " " Listen to me, my dear Madame Cibot," said the doctor, who was now on the step of the porte cochere, " one of the chief symptoms of the disease iz 162 THE POOR RELATIONS your gentleman has is a constant anxiety about mere nothings, and as it is not likely that he can have a nurse, it is you who will have to take care of him. Therefore " " Eet ees of Moucheu Ponche zat you speek?" asked the dealer in old iron-work, who was smoking his pipe. And he rose from his seat on the door-step to take part in the conversation of the concierge and the doctor. "Yes, Papa Remonencq," replied Madame Cibot to the Auvergnat. "Vel, then, he is more riche than Moucheu Mon- ichtrolle and all ze uzzer curiochite men. I knows enough about these artistique zings to tell you zat ze tear man has much richeness!" "Goodness! I thought you were making fun of me the other day when I showed you all them an- tiquities while my gentlemen were out," said Mad- ame Cibot to Remonencq. At Paris, where the pavements have ears, and the doors have tongues, and the window-shutters eyes, nothing is more dangerous than to talk in a porte cochere. The last words exchanged there, and which are to the conversation what a postscript is to a letter, contain indiscretions as dangerous for those who let them be heard as for those who hear them. A single example will suffice to corroborate that case which this history presents. One day, one of the chief hair-dressers in the days of the Empire, a period when people bestowed COUSIN PONS 163 much care upon their hair, issued from a house in which he had just been dressing the hair of a pretty woman, and in which he had the custom of all the rich tenants. Among these flourished an old bachelor, protected by an old housekeeper, who de- tested all the heirs of her gentleman. The ci-devant young man fell seriously ill, and became the subject of a consultation of all the most famous physicians, who did not as yet call themselves " the princes of science." Leaving the house accidentally at the same time as the hair-dresser, these doctors, in bid- ding each other good-bye on the step of the porte cochere, were talking truth and science openly, as they do between themselves when the farce of the consultation is over. "He is a dead man," said Doctor Haudry. "He has not a month to live," added Desplein, "unless indeed by a miracle." The hair-dresser heard these words. Like all hair- dressers, he had an understanding with the servants. Impelled by a monstrous cupidity, he remounted promptly to the apartments of the old bachelor, and he promised to the servant-mistress a very hand- some premium if she could decide her master to invest the greater part of his fortune in an annuity. In the property of this dying old bachelor, who had seen fifty-six years, and who might have counted them double because of his amorous campaigns, there was a magnificent house situated in the Rue de Richelieu, worth at that time about two hundred and fifty thousand francs. This house, the object of the covetousness of the hair-dresser, was sold to 164 THE POOR RELATIONS him for an annuity of thirty thousand francs. AH this took place in 1806. The hair-dresser, retired from business, now a septuagenarian, is still paying the annuity in 1846, as the ci-devant young man is now ninety-six, is quite childish, and has married his Madame vrard, and may last a long time yet. The hair-dresser having given thirty thousand francs to the servant, finds that this piece of landed prop- erty has cost him over a million; but the house to-day is worth from eight to nine hundred thousand francs. In imitation of this hair-dresser, the Auvergnat had overheard the last words said by Brunner and Pons on the steps of his doorway, the day of the interview of the fiance phoenix with Cecile; he had therefore conceived the desire to see Pons's museum. As he lived on good terms with the Cibots, he was soon afterward introduced into the apartment of the two friends during their absence. Dazzled by such treasures, he saw a coup & monter, which means in dealer's slang, "a fortune to steal," and he had been thinking over this project for the last five or six days. "I do not choke," he replied to Madame Cibot and the doctor. " Let us talk apout it, and eef this goot chentleman would like an annooity of fifty thousand franques, I vil go you a hamber of wine eef you " "What are you thinking of?" said the doctor to Remonencq, "fifty thousand francs annuity! But if the good man is as rich as that, is doctored by COUSIN PONS 165 me, and cared for by Madame Cibot, he may get well for liver complaints are the inconvenient ac- companiments of every good constitution " " Dit I say fifty? Vhy a chentleman on those very stebs that you are standing on brobosed to bay him a hundret and fifty tousand franques, and that for the bictures alone, py tarn!" Hearing this assertion of Remonencq, Madame Cibot looked at Doctor Poulain with a strange expression. The devil lit up a sinister fire in her orange-colored eyes. "Come, do not let us listen to such idle tales," said the doctor, sufficiently pleased to know that his patient would be able to pay for all the visits that he might make to him. "Moucheu le doucteurre, eef my tear Madame Chibot, now that the chentleman is in his bet, will let me pring an egspairt to eggsamine the arteecles, I am zhure that I could fmt tee moneys in two hours, even eef it comes to tees hundret and fifty thous- and franques " "Good, my friend!" said the doctor. " Be sure, Madame Cibot, to be careful not to contradict the sick man; you will have to be very patient, for everything will irritate him and fatigue him, even your attentions; you must make up your mind that nothing will please him " " It will be mighty difficult," said the concierge. "See here, listen to me," resumed the doctor, with an authoritative air, "the life of M. Rons is in the hands of those who take care of him; therefore 166 THE POOR RELATIONS I shall come and see him perhaps twice every day. I shall commence my rounds here " The doctor had suddenly passed from the profound indifference which he felt for the fate of his sick poor to a solicitude the most tender, as he recognized the possibility of the wealth so much insisted upon by the speculative dealer. "He shall be taken care of like a king," replied Madame Cibot with a sham enthusiasm. The concierge waited until the doctor had turned the corner of the Rue Chariot before resuming the conversation with Remonencq. The dealer in iron was finishing his pipe, his back supported against the casing of the door of his shop. He had not taken this position without design; he wished to compel her to come to him. This shop, formerly used as a cafe, remained just as it was when the Auvergnat first hired it The words "Cafe de Normandie," might still be read on the long sign which is placed above the windows in all modern shops. The Auvergnat had had painted, probably gratuitously, with a brush and some black paint by some house-painter's ap- prentice, in the space which was left under the name "Cafe de Normandie," "Remonencq, dealer in old ironware, buys second-hand merchandise." Of course the mirrors, the tables, the stools, the sideboards, all the furniture of the Cafe de Nor- mandie, had been sold. Remonencq had hired for six hundred francs a shop completely empty, the back shop, a kitchen, and a single chamber in the entresol, where the head-waiter had formerly slept, for the apartments dependent upon the Cafe de Nor- mandie were situated elsewhere. Of the primitive luxury once displayed by the restaurant-keeper, nothing remained but a plain, light-green paper on the walls of the shop, and the strong iron bars and bolts of the shop window. Established here in 1831, after the Revolution of July, Remonencq commenced by displaying cracked bells, dented pans, old iron-work, ancient scales, the out-of-date weights, now discarded by the law relating to the new weights and measures, which (167) 1 68 THE POOR RELATIONS the government alone does not obey, for it still leaves in circulation one and two-sou pieces which date from the reign of Louis XVI. Then this Auvergnat, of the capacity of five Auvergnats, bought kitchen utensils, old frames, old brasses, chipped porcelains. Gradually, by dint of empty- ing and replenishing, the shop had grown to resem- ble the farces of Nicolet, the character of the merchandise had improved. The iron merchant followed that prodigious and sure game of doubling his effects at each deal, so that the result soon man- ifested itself to the eyes of those loungers suffi- ciently philosophical to study the progressive growth in value of the articles which garnish these intelli- gent shops. To the tinned iron, to the argand lamps, to the potsherds, succeed brasses and frames. After these come porcelains. Soon the shop, tem- porarily changed into a crout'eum, i. e., filled with wretched paintings, develops into a museum. Fi- nally, one day, the dusty window-panes are cleaned, the interior is restored, the Auvergnat abandons his velveteen and his waistcoat, and takes to wearing coats! he is to be seen like a dragon guard- ing his treasures; he is surrounded by master- pieces, he has grown to be a keen connoisseur, he has increased his capital ten-fold, and can no longer betaken in by any trick; he knows all the prac- tices of the trade. The monster is there, like an old woman, in the middle of twenty young girls whom she offers to the public. The beauty, the mira- cles of art, are nothing to this man, at once gross COUSIN PONS 169 and cultivated, who calculates his profits and im- poses on the ignorant He becomes a comedian ; he affects attachment to his canvases, to his mar- quetries, or he feigns poverty, or he invents cost prices and offers to show the bill of sale. He is a Proteus, he is in the same hour Jocrisse, Janot, merry-andrew, or Mondor, or Harpagon, or Nico- demus. In the course of the third year, there might be seen in Remonencq's shop, handsome clocks, armor, and old pictures ; and he caused his establishment to be guarded during his absences by a stout woman, excessively ugly, his sister, who had come from his own country on foot, at his request The female Remonencq, a species of idiot, with a vague eye, and dressed like a Japanese idol, never abated one centime of the price which her brother in- structed her to ask; she also took charge of the housekeeping, and solved the problem, apparently insoluble, of sustaining life solely on the fogs of the Seine. Remonencq and his sister lived on bread and herrings, on pickings, on the scraps of vegeta- bles gathered out of the waste stuff left by the restaurant keepers at the corners of their premises. For both, they did not spend, bread included, more than twelve sous a day, and the woman sewed or spun to earn them. This development of a business in the case of Remonencq, who originally came to Paris to be a public messenger and who from 1825 to 1831 ran errands for the curiosity-dealers of the Boulevard 170 THE POOR RELATIONS Beaumarchais and the coppersmiths of the Rue de Lappe, is the normal history of most of the bric-a- brac dealers. The Jews, the Normans, the Auver- gnats, the Savoyards these four races of men have the same instincts, they make their fortunes by the same means. To spend nothing, to gain by slight profits, and to accumulate interest and profits, such is their code, and this code has now become a charter. At this period, Remonencq, reconciled with his former employer, Monistrol, having connection with the important dealers, devoted himself to chiner which is the technical slang in the suburbs of Paris, which, as you know, cover a radius of some forty leagues. After fourteen years of such traffic, he was possessed of a fortune of sixty thousand francs and a shop very well filled. His varying profits in the Rue de Normandie were few, but the lowness of the rent retained him there; he sold his gatherings to the larger dealers, and was satisfied with a moderate profit All his business was trans- acted in the Auvergne patois, called charabia. This man nourished a dream ! He desired to be able to establish himself on the boulevards; he wished to become a rich dealer in curiosities, and to come directly in contact with the amateurs. He had it in him, moreover, to become a redoubtable trader. His face was always covered with a dusty coating produced by iron filings mixed with perspiration, for he did everything himself; this rendered his physiognomy all the more inscrutable, as the habit COUSIN PONS 171 of physical endurance had endowed with a stoic impassibility the old soldiers of 1799. In person, Remonencq was a short, thin man, whose little eyes, set in his head like those of a pig, re- vealed in their cold blue the concentrated greed, the craftiness of the Jews, without their apparent humility, which covers the profound contempt they feel for Christians. The relations between the Cibots and the Remonencqs were those of benefactor and bene- ficiary. Madame Cibot, convinced of the excessive poverty of the Auvergnats, sold to them at ridiculous prices the remnants from the tables of Schmucke and Cibot Remonencq paid for a pound of dried crusts and crumbs of bread, two centimes and a half, and one centime and a half for a pan of potatoes, etc. The crafty Remonencq was supposed to do no business on his own account He always claimed to represent Monistrol, and declared that he was a prey to the rich dealers; consequently the Cibots sincerely pitied the Remonencqs. In eleven years the Auvergnat had never worn out the velveteen jacket, the velveteen trousers, and the velveteen waistcoat which he regularly wore ; but these three garments, sacred to Auvergnats, were riddled with patches put in gratis by Cibot As may be seen, all Jews are not Israelites. "Weren't you making fun of me, Remonencq," said the concierge, "could it be that M. Pons has such a fortune and live the life he does? He has not one hundred francs about him ! " 1 72 THE POOR RELATIONS "Amateurs are always like, zat," answered Remonencq sententiously. "You don't believe, not really, that my gentle- man has got seven hundred thousand francs?" "Nootheengs less zan zat in the pictures alone. He's got one of zem zat I'd pay him feefty dhous- and franquesfor, even eef eet strangled me to do eet. You know zose leetle prass frames enamelled with red velvet eenside them, in which aire bortraits? Vary well, zey aire enamels by Petitotte, zat Mou- cheu le Minichtre du Gouvarnemente, who was once a druccist, pays one dhousand crowns apiece for." "There are thirty of them in the two frames!" said the concierge, with her eyes dilating. "Vary well, you can chudge zen yoursalf of hees dreasure!" Madame Cibot, seized with dizziness, turned round about She conceived in that moment the idea of worming herself into the testament of the worthy Pons, in imitation of those servant-mis- tresses whose annuities had excited so much cupidity in the quarter of the Marais. Already she saw her- self living in the commune, in the suburbs of Paris, strutting about in a country-house, where she looked after her poultry-yard and her garden, and where she would finish her days served like a queen, as well as her poor Cibot, who deserved so much happiness, as do all neglected and misinterpreted angels. In the abrupt and involuntary movement of Madame Cibot, Remonencq saw a certainty of suc- cess. In the trade of the chineur such is the slang COUSIN PONS 173 name for the collectors of second-hand treasures, from the verb chiner, to go in quest of old things, and to drive sharp bargains with their ignorant pos- sessors ; in this trade the first difficulty is to get into houses. It is difficult to conceive all the ruses a la Scapin, the tricks a la Sganarelle, and the se- ductions a la Dorine which the chineurs invent in order to enter the house of the bourgeois. It is a comedy worthy of the theatre, and is always based, as in this case, on the rapacity of servants. For thirty pieces of silver or a few wares, servants, and above all, those in the country or in provincial towns, will help the chineur to bargains which often bring him in a profit of one thousand or two thous- and francs. There is a certain service of old Sevres, pate tendre, whose capture, if related, would equal all the diplomatic craftiness of the Congress of Munster, all of the intelligence dis- played at Nimeguen, Utrecht, Ryswick, or Vienna, which indeed is often surpassed by the chineurs, whose comedy is far more frank than that of the diplomatists. The chineurs have means of action which dive quite as deeply into the depths of per- sonal interest as those so laboriously sought for by ambassadors, to break up the most solid alliances. "I vinely stirred upzat Chibot woman," said the brother to the sister, as she returned to take her place on a broken straw chair; "and now I am going to gonsult ze only man who ees up to such dings, our Chew, a goot Chew, who won't douch anyding under feefteen per chent" Remonencq had read Madame Cibot's hear_t__Jn_ women of her character, to will is to act; they stick at nothing to attain success; they pass instantane- ously from the strictest integrity to the most fla- grant dishonesty. Honesty, like all our other sentiments, for that matter, must be divided into two honesties a positive and a negative honesty. The negative honesty is that of the Cibots, who are upright so long as they meet with no oppor- tunity to enrich themselves. Positive honesty is that which remains in temptation always up to the thighs without ever yielding to it, like that of the receiving teller. A whole crowd of evil intentions rushed into the intelligence and into the heart of this concierge when the flood-gates of self-interest were set open by the devilish suggestion of the old- iron merchant Madame Cibot went up, flew up, to speak accurately, from the lodge to the apartment of her two gentlemen, and presented herself, with a face of assumed tenderness, on the threshold of the chamber where Rons and Schmucke were lamenting. As he saw the housekeeper enter, Schmucke made a sign to her to say nothing before the patient of the doctor's real opinion; for this friend, this de- voted German, had read the truth in the doctor's eyes. Madame Cibot answered by another sign of the head, expressive of the deepest grief. (175) 1 76 THE POOR RELATIONS "Well, my dear gentleman, how do you feel?" said she. The concierge took her stand at the foot of the bed, her fists on her hips, and her eyes fixed lov- ingly upon the sick man but what sparks of gold flashed up in these eyes ! It was as terrible as the glance of a tiger to an observer. "Very badly," answered the poor Rons. "I have not the least appetite Ah! what a world it is," he cried, pressing the hand of Schmucke, who, seated beside his pillow, held his friend's, and with whom doubtless the invalid had been speaking of the causes of his illness. "I would have done much better, my good Schmucke, if I had followed your advice! if I had dined here every day since our union ! if I had renounced that society which rolls 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 can get over it, but you must have a great lot of care. You can be easy; haven't you got a very good friend and, not to praise myself too much, a woman as will nurse you just like a mother nurses her first baby? I pulled Cibot through a sickness when M. Poulain said he was done for, and had put the weights, as they say, on his eyes, and gave him up for dead ! Now, you ain't nearly so bad as that, God be praised, although you are pretty sick, but you trust me I'll pull you through all COUSIN PONS 177 by my own self! Be easy and don't fidget that way." She drew the bed-clothes over the sick man's hands. "Don't you never worry, my boy," said she, "M. Schmucke and I, we'll sit up all night with you here at your bedside You'll be nursed better nor a prince; and besides, ain't you rich enough to be able to have everything that is necessary for your sickness I have arranged all that with Cibot; poor dear man, what will he do without me! All the same, I've made him listen to reason, and we both love you so much that he has consented that I should stay up here at nights And for a man like him, that's a mighty sacrifice, be sure, for he loves me as he did the first day. I don't know why he is so! it's living in that lodge! always side by side! Don't uncover yourself like that," she cried, darting to the head of the bed and pulling the bed-clothes over Pons's chest "If you don't behave nicely, and if you don't do all that M. Pou- lain orders for you, and he is the image of the good God on earth, I won't take any care of you You will have to mind me " "Yez, Montame Zipod, he vill opey you, for he vill dry to lif for hees goot frent Schmucke, I gan bromise dat" "And above all, you mustn't get impatient," went on Madame Cibot, "for your sickness will make you enough so without your making no worse your natural want of patience. God sends us our 12 178 THE POOR RELATIONS troubles, my dear, good monsieur, he punishes us for our faults; haven't you got no nice little dear faults to reproach yourself with? " The sick man shook his head negatively. "Oh, come on, you have never loved no one when you were young? you have never done no foolish- ness ? you have not perhaps somewheres a love-child that hasn't got no bread, no fire, no home? You monsters of men ! you love a person one day and then say, whist! you don't think no more of any- thing, not even of paying for a month's nursing! Poor women! " "But there was no one but Schmucke and my poor mother who ever loved me," said poor Pons, sadly. "Nonsense, you're not no saint! Weren't you never young and you must have been a very pretty fellow at twenty I would have loved you myself, good as you are " "I was always as ugly as a toad " said Pons despairingly. "You say that for modesty. You have that to be said in your favor, anyhow, that you are modest." "No, no, my dear Madame Cibot, I repeat it to you, I was always ugly, and I have never been loved" "I like that you, indeed!" she said. "You would try to make me believe at this time that you are as innocent as a babe unborn A man of your kind, a musician, a theatre man ! Why, if it was a woman that told me so 1 shouldn't believe her." COUSIN PONS 179 "Montame Zipod, you moost not irridade heem ! " cried Schmucke as he saw poor Pons writhing, like a worm, in his bed. "Now you hold your tongue! You are both of you two old rakes Suppose you ain't very good- looking, there ain't no ugly cover that hasn't its pot! as the proverb says ! Cibot made the handsomest oyster-woman in all Paris love him and you are a deal better-looking than he You are very good, you ! Go along, you played your little games ! and God punishes you for having deserted your children like Abraham! " The sick man, overwhelmed, found strength to make another gesture of denial. "But don't worry, that won't prevent you living to be as old as Methusalem. " "But will you let me alone! "cried Pons. "I never knew what it was to be loved ! I have no children, 1 am alone upon the earth " "No, is that so? " said the concierge, "for you are so good, and the women, don't you know, love goodness, that's what makes them like you; and it seems to me impossible that in your best days" "Take her away!" said Pons inSchmucke's ear. "She worries me." "Monsieur Schmucke, then, he has some children You are all like that, you old bachelors " "I," exclaimed Schmucke, jumping on his feet, "but" "Oh, come, you also you haven't got no heirs, 180 THE POOR RELATIONS haven't you? You have come up, both of you, like mushrooms out of the ground " "Gome, go along," replied Schmucke. The good German took Madame Cibot heroically by the waist and dragged her from the room in spite of her cries. "You wouldn't wish to, at your age, abuse a poor woman ! " cried she, struggling in Schmucke's arms. "Toan'd sgreem! " "You, the best of the two! " she replied. "Ah! I did wrong to talk of love to two old fellows who have never known any woman ! I have made you all hot, monster," she cried, seeing that Schmucke's eyes sparkled with anger. "Help! help! I am being carried away." "You are ein vool," answered the German. "Dell me vat has ze togdor zaid? " "You treat me brutally," said Madame Cibot, sob- bing, as soon as she was released, "I who would go through fire and water for you two ! Ah, well ! they say that men show what they are in time How true it is! My poor Cibot would never have used me so I who behaved like a mother to you; for I hain't got no children, and I was saying yesterday, yes, no later nor yesterday, to Cibot: 'My love, God knew what he was a-doing when he wouldn't let us have no children, for I have got two babies upstairs ! ' There ! by the Holy Cross of the good God, by the soul of my mother, that's just what I said to him " "Put vat has ze togdor zaid," demanded COUSIN PONS l8l Schmucke, and for the first time in his life he stamped his foot "Well, he said," replied Madame Cibot, drawing Schmucke into the dining-room, "he said that our dearly-beloved darling was in danger of dying if he did not have the best of care; but I am here in spite of your brutality; for you are brutal, you whom I took to be so gentle. Is that the kind of man you are ? Ah ! you would go to insult a woman at your a ge, you old scoundrel ? " "Sgountrel! I! Toan'd you know I gan no von lofe only Bons! " "Well, that's all right, you will let me alone, won't you ?" she answered, smiling at Schmucke. "You'd better,for Cibot would break any one's bones who insulted his honor ! " "Dake goot gare of heem, my leedle Montame Zipod," returned Schmucke, trying to take Madame Cibot's hand. "There ! do you see, you are at it again ! " "Leesten to me ! All I haf ees yours eef zo be as ve gan zave heem." "Well, well, I will go to the apothecary and get what's wanted; for you see, monsieur, this sick- ness is going to cost you a good deal ; and how will you arrange that? " "I vill vork. It moost pe dat Bons moost pe gared for lige a brince." "He shall be, my good Monsieur Schmucke; and don't you fret about nothing. Cibot and I, we got two thousand francs of savings. They are all yours, 1 82 THE POOR RELATIONS and it's a long time since I have spent anything of my own here, now! " "Goot vooman," cried Schmucke, wiping his eyes. "Vat a heart zhe has ! " "Dry those eyes that honor me, for they are my reward ! " cried the Cibot melodramatically. "There ain't a more disinterested creature nor I am; but don't you go on in that way, with your eyes crying, for Monsieur Pons will think that he is sicker nor he is." Schmucke, touched by this delicacy, finally got hold of her hand and pressed it "Do not spare me!" said the former oyster- woman, throwing Schmucke a tender glance. "Bons," said the good German, going back to his friend, "zhe is ein anchel, a jaddering anchel, put ein anchel all ze zame." "Do you think so? I have grown suspicious of everyone this last month," replied the sick man shaking his head. "After all my troubles it is hard to believe in anything but in God and you!" "Get veil, ant ve vill all dree leef togedder lige kings," replied Schmucke. "Cibot," cried his wife, out of breath, rushing into the porter's lodge. "Ah! my dear, our for- tune is made. My two gentlemen haven't got no heirs, and no natural children, and no nothing what- ever! Oh! I am going to Mame Fontaine's to get her to tell our fortune on the cards to see how much money we are to get! " COUSIN PONS 183 "My wife," replied the little tailor, "don't depend upon the shoes of a dead man to be well shod." "Ah, there! are you going to plague me, you!" she said, giving her husband a friendly tap. "I know what I know. M. Poulain has said that M. Rons is going to die! And we shall be rich! I shall be put in the will ! I will take good care of that You stitch away here and watch the lodge, you won't be much longer at this trade! We will retire into the country somewhere around Batig- nolles. A handsome house, a fine garden, which you will love to work in, and I will have a ser- vant!" "Veil, veil! neighpor, how are dey cetting on upstairs?" asked Remonencq. "Haave you fount out yet vat dat gollection is vorth? " "No, no, not yet You can't get on as fast as that, my good man. I, I began by finding out some- thing much more important " "More imbordant?" cried Remonencq, "but vat is more imbordant dan dees ding? " "Come, come, my lad, you let me sail the ship," said Madame Cibot, domineeringly. "But dirty per chent on dat one hundret dou- sand franques is word enuffe to maik you leeve like a pourgeois for tee resd of your dayz " "Don't you worry, Papa Remonencq, when it is necessary to know what all those things the old fel- low has picked up are worth, we will see to it " And Madame Cibot, after going to the apothe- cary's to get the doctor's prescription made up, put 1 84 THE POOR RELATIONS off till to-morrow her consultation with Madame Fontaine, figuring that she should find the faculties of the oracle more crisp, more fresh, in the early morning, before the crowd arrived; for there was often a crowd at Madame Fontaine's. After having been, during forty years, the rival of the celebrated Mademoiselle Lenormand, whom she survived, Madame Fontaine was at .the present time the oracle of the Marais. It is not generally known what the fortune-tellers are among the lower classes in Paris, nor the immense influence they exert over the decision of uneducated persons; for the cooks, the concierges, the kept mistresses, work-people, all those who in Paris live on hope, consult the privileged beings who possess the strange and in- explicable power of reading the future. The belief in occult sciences is far more widely spread than the scientists, the lawyers, the notaries, the doc- tors, the magistrates, and the philosophers imagine. The people have ineradicable instincts. Among these instincts, the one so foolishly called supersti- tion is as much in their blood as it is in the brains of their superiors. More than one statesman in Paris consult the fortune-tellers. To the incredu- lous, judicial astrology a most grotesque conjunc- tion of words is nothing more than the exploitation of an innate sentiment, one of the strongest in our nature, curiosity. The incredulous deny positively the relation that divination establishes between human destiny and the configurations which are obtained by the seven or eight principal methods which compose judicial astrology. But it is with 1 86 THE POOR RELATIONS the occult sciences as it has been with so many natural phenomena ignored by the more intelligent or by the materialistic philosophers, that is to say, all those who hold exclusively to visible and solid facts, to those results obtained by the retort, or the scales of physics and of modern chemistry; these sciences nevertheless exist, they continue to ad- vance without making much progress, for in the last two centuries their culture has been abandoned by finer minds. In considering only the possible side of divina- tion, to believe that the past events of a man's life, that the secrets known to him alone, can be instantly revealed by the cards which he shuffles and cuts, and which the reader of his horoscope divides, ac- cording to some mysterious rules, into various little packs, is an absurdity ; but steam was condemned as an absurdity, and so is to-day aerial navigation, so was the invention of gun-powder, and of print- ing, that of spectacles, the art of engraving, and the last great invention the daguerreotype. If any one had gone to Napoleon and told him that a build- ing or a man is represented at all moments, and per- petually, by an image in the atmosphere; that all existing objects have within that atmosphere a per- ceptible and obtainable spectre, he would have sent that man to Charenton, just as Richelieu put Salo- mon de Caux in the Bice"tre, when that Norman martyr offered him the vast conquest of steam navi- gation. And that is, nevertheless, that which Daguerre has proved by his discovery ! Very well, COUSIN PONS 187 if God has imprinted for certain clear-seeing eyes the destiny of every man upon his physiognomy, meaning by that word the expression of his whole body, why should not the hand resume in itself all that physiognomy, since the hand is the whole of human action and its sole means of manifestation ? Hence chiromancy. Does not society imitate God? To predict to a man the coming events of his life by the aspect of his hand is a feat not any more extra- ordinary to those who have received the faculties of a seer than it is to say to a soldier that he will fight, to a lawyer that he will speak, to the shoe- maker that he will make shoes or boots, to the hus- bandman that he will manure the earth and till it Let us take a striking instance. Genius is so visi- ble in man that when he walks through the streets of Paris a great artist is recognized by the most ignorant people. It is like a spiritual sun whose rays light up all around him as he passes. Is an imbecile also immediately recognized by the contrary impressions to those which the man of genius produces? Commonplace men pass almost unperceived. The greater part of the observers of social and Parisian human nature can tell at a glance the profession of a man who passes them in the street To-day the mysteries of the witch's Sabbat, so fully pictured by the painters of the six- teenth century, are mysteries no longer. The Egyptian sorcerers, male and female, progenitors of the gypsies of Bohemia, that strange race coming from India, simply made their votaries eat hashish. 1 88 THE POOR RELATIONS The phenomena produced by that drug explain amply the riding on broomsticks, the flight up the chimneys, the real visions, so to speak, of old women changed into young ones, the frenzied dances and the entrancing music which compose the fantastic devotions of the pretended worshipers of the devil. To-day so many authentic and established facts have come to light by means of the occult sciences that some day these sciences will be taught, just as now we teach chemistry and astronomy. It is even singular that at this moment, when they are creat- ing in Paris professors of the Slav, of the Mantchoo, of literatures as unacademic as the literatures of the North, which, instead of furnishing lessons should receive them, and of which the nominal professors repeat eternal dissertations upon Shakespeare or upon the sixteenth century, that they have not revived under the name of anthropology, the teach- ing of occult philosophy, one of the glories of the ancient University. In this, Germany, that nation at once so great and so infantile, has gone further than France, for there they profess this science, a much more useful one than the various PHILOSO- PHIES 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 the great inventor perceives an art or science in some natural phenomenon unobserved by the ordi- nary mind, this is not one of those violent excep- tions to the order of things which excite unthinking clamor ; it is simply the working of a recognized COUSIN PONS 189 faculty, and of one which is in some measure the somnambulism of the spirit This proposition, on which rest all the various methods of deciphering the future, may seem absurd, but the fact remains. Observe also that to predict the great events of the future is not, for the seer, any greater exhibition of power than that of revealing the secrets of the past The past and the future are equally unknown in the system of the incredulous. If past events have left their traces, it is reasonable to infer that com- ing ones have their roots. Whenever a soothsayer tells you, minutely, facts of your past life known to yourself alone, he can surely tell you of events which existing causes will produce. The moral world is cut out, so to speak, on the pattern of the material world ; the same effects may be found in it, with the differences proper to their varied envi- ronments. Thus, just as the body is actually pro- jected into the atmosphere and leaves in it existing the spectre seized by the daguerreotype which arrested it in its passage ; so ideas, real and poten- tial 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 co in words to express these unknown phenomena, and hence certain created beings, endowed with rare faculties, can clearly perceive these forms or these traces of thoughts or ideas. As to the means employed to obtain visions, these are, of all these marvels, those which are most readily explained, as soon as the hand of the IQO THE POOR RELATIONS inquirer has arranged the objects by the aid of which he is to be shown the happenings of his life. In fact, all things are linked together in the real world. Every motion in it corresponds to a cause, every cause is a part of the whole ; consequently, the whole is represented in the slightest movement Rabelais, the greatest mind of modern humanity, this man who combined within himself Pythagoras, Hippocrates, Aristophanes, and Dante, declared three centuries ago "man is a microcosm." Three centuries later, Swedenborg, the great Swedish prophet, said that the earth was a man. The prophet and the precursor of scepticism thus met upon the ground of this greatest of all formulas. All things are predestined in human life, as in the life of our planet The slightest accidents, the most futile, are regulated by law. Consequently, the great events, the great designs, the great thoughts, have their necessary reflex in the least actions, and with so much fidelity that if some conspirator were to shuffle and cut a pack of cards he would write, in so doing, the secret of his conspiracy to be read by the seer, otherwise called Bohemian, fortune- teller, charlatan, etc. As soon as we admit neces- sity, that is to say, the connection of causes, judi- cial astrology exists and becomes that which it once was a vast science, for it comprises the fac- ulty of deduction which made Cuvier so great; but spontaneous, instead of being, as in the case of that fine genius, exercised only on studious nights, in the depths of his own cabinet COUSIN PONS 191 Judicial astrology, divination, reigned for seven centuries, not as to-day over the common people, but over the loftiest intelligences, over sovereigns, queens, and the wealthy. One of the greatest sciences of antiquity, animal magnetism, survived from the occult sciences, just as chemistry issued from the retorts of the alchemists. Phrenology, the science of physiognomy, neurology, are also derived from it; and the illustrious creators of these sciences, apparently so novel, have made but one error that of all inventors and which consists in generalizing absolutely from isolated facts whose generating cause still escapes analysis. There came a day when the Church and modern philosophy found themselves in accord with the law, to pro- scribe, persecute, and ridicule the mysteries of the Kabala and its adepts, and there ensued a regret- table gap of one hundred years in the supremacy and the study of the occult sciences. Nevertheless, the people, and many persons of intelligence, women especially, continue to pay their contributions to the mysterious power of those who are able to lift the veil of the future ; they go to them to purchase hope, courage, strength, in other words, that which religion alone can give them. So this science is still constantly practised, not without certain risks. In our day, the sorcerers, guaranteed against torture by the tolerance won by the encyclopedists of the eighteenth century, are now only answerable to the correctional police, and in those cases only in which they practise fraud, when they terrify their clients IQ2 THE POOR RELATIONS for the purpose of extorting money, offenses which come under the charge of swindling. Unfortunately, such swindling, and often actual crime, accompany the exercise of this sublime faculty. For this reason : The admirable gifts which make the seer are usually met with among those we characterize as brutish. These brutes are the chosen vessels in which God has poured the elixirs which surprise humanity. These brutes furnish the prophets, the Saint Peters, the Hermit. Whenever thought can be kept in its integrity, in its complete- ness, not frittered away in conversation, in in- trigues, in literary work, in the speculations of the scientists, in administrative efforts, in the concep- tions of the inventor, in warlike works, it is apt to burn with fire of a prodigious intensity, just as the uncut diamond contains all the sparkle of its facets. Let the occasion arrive, this intelligence at once lights up, it has wings to waft it over space, divine eyes to perceive everything; yesterday it was car- bon ; to-morrow, under the flooding of the mysteri- ous fluid which pervades it, it is a diamond which glitters. Men of superior mind with all the facets of their intellect well-worn, can never, without at least one of those miracles which God permits him- self sometimes, offer this supreme power. Thus it happens that the diviners, male and female, are nearly always mendicants with uncultured minds, beings apparently of coarse fibre, pebbles rolled in the torrents of poverty, in the ruts of existence, COUSIN PONS 193 where they have expended only physical suffering. The prophet, the seer, is in fact, Martin the laborer, who made Louis XVIII. tremble by telling to him a secret known only to the king; it is a Mademoiselle Lenormand, a cook like Madame Fontaine, some half-idiotic negress, some herdsman living among his horned beasts, a fakir sitting at the edge of a pagoda and who, by killing the flesh, has won for the spirit all the unknown powers of somnambulic faculties. It is in Asia that from all time have been found the heroes of the occult sciences. It often happens that these individuals who in their ordinary lives remain their ordinary selves, for they fulfill, as it were, the chemical and physical functions of the conducting mediums of an electric current, alter- nately inert metal and canals full of mysterious fluids, these individuals, sinking back into their natural condition, betake themselves to practices and schemes which bring them under the power of the police, and find themselves, as in the case of the famous Balthazar, before the Assize Court or in the galleys. In fine, a proof of the immense power which cartomancy exercises over the lower orders may be found in the fact that the life or death of our poor musician depended on the horoscope which Madame Fontaine was about to draw for Madame Cibot Though certain repetitions are inevitable in so extensive a work and one so full of detail as a com- plete history of French society in the nineteenth century, it is unnecessary to paint here the den of Madame Fontaine, already described in The Involuntary Comedians. Only, however, it is neces- sary to observe that Madame Cibot went into Madame Fontaine's in the Rue Vieille-du- Temple, very much as the habitues of the Cafe Anglais enter that restaurant to breakfast Madame Cibot, a very old customer, often brought her young peo- ple and the gossips of the neighborhood, devoured by curiosity. The old servant who served as an" usher to the fortune-teller, opened the door of the sanctuary without giving notice to her mistress. "It is Madame Cibot! Walk in," she added, "there is no one here." "Well, my little one, what has brought you out so early? " asked the sorceress. Madame Fontaine, then sixty-eight years of age, merited this qualification by her personal appear- ance, worthy of one of the Parca?. "I am all upside down, give me the Grand Deal," cried the Cibot "It is a question of my fortune." And she explained the situation in which she (195) 196 THE POOR RELATIONS found herself, and demanded a prophecy for her sordid hopes. "You do not know what it is, the Grand Deal ? " said Madame Fontaine solemnly. "No, I have never been rich enough to see that game! A hundred francs! Excuse me, where could I have got them ? But to-day, now, I must have it!" "I do not do it often, my little one," replied Madame Fontaine, "I only give it to rich people on great occasions, and they pay me twenty-five louis; for, do you see, that fatigues me, it wears me out ! The Spirit shakes me up, down there in my stomach. It is like, as they used to say, going to the Sabbat ! " "But when I tell you, my good Madame Fon- taine, that it is a question of all my future " "Well, for you, to whom I owe so many consulta- tions, I will give myself up to the Spirit!" replied Madame Fontaine, revealing in her withered coun- tenance an expression of terror that was not simu- lated. She left her old dirty sofa in the corner of the chimney and went towards her table, covered with a green cloth so worn that all the threads could be counted in it, and where, on the left, a toad of enormous dimensions lay asleep beside an open cage which was inhabited by a black hen with ruffled feathers. "Astaroth! Here, my son!" said she, giving a light tap with a long knitting-needle on the back of the toad, which looked up to her with an intelligent COUSIN PONS 197 air, "and you, Mademoiselle Cleopatra ! attention!" she added, giving another little tap on the beak of the old hen. Madame Fontaine then sank into inward medita- tion, she remained during several moments perfectly motionless; she looked like a dead woman, her eyes turned inwards so that only the whites were seen ; then she stiffened herself and said in a cavernous voice: "I am here!" Then, after having automatically strewn some grain for Cleopatra, she took up her pack of cards, le grand jeu, shuffled them convulsively, and made Madame Cibot cut them, all the while sighing deeply. When this image of death in a dirty tur- ban, wrapped in a sinister jacket, examined the grains of millet which the black hen pecked at and ordered her toad Astaroth to creep over the cards which were spread on the table, Madame Cibot felt the cold run down her back, she shivered. If is only the great beliefs which give great emotions. To have or not to have the money that was the question, as Shakespeare says. At the end of seven or eight minutes, during which the sorceress opened and read in a sepulchral voice, from a conjuring book, and examined the grains of millet which remained, and the track which the toad had made as it crept away, she ex- pounded the meaning of the cards in turning upon them her white eyes. "You will succeed ! though nothing in this affair 198 THE POOR RELATIONS will happen as you think, "she said. "You will have many steps to take. But you will gather the fruits of your labors. You will do very great wrong, but it will be with you as with all those who are near sick people and who covet a part of their inheritance. You will be helped in this evil work by people of consequence Later, you will repent in the agonies of death, for you will die in the village to which you will retire with your second husband, assassinated by two escaped con- victs, one a small man with red hair, and one an old man quite bald, on account of the fortune which you will be supposed to have Go, my daughter, you are free to act or to remain as you are." The inward exaltation which had lit the torches in the hollow eyes of this skeleton, so cold in appear- ance, instantly went out When the horoscope was pronounced, Madame Fontaine experienced something like a bewilderment, and resembled in every respect a somnambulist suddenly awakened; she looked around her with an astonished air ; then she recognized Madame Cibot, and appeared sur- prised to see the horror depicted on her face. "Well, my daughter," said she, in a voice quite different from that in which she had prophesied "are you satisfied? " Madame Cibot looked at the sorceress with a stupefied air, without being able to answer her. "Ah, you would have the Grand Deal ! I have treated you like an old acquaintance. Only give me the hundred francs " COUSIN PONS 199 "Cibot, to die?" cried the concierge. "I, then, have said to you very terrible things ? " demanded Madame Fontaine, quite simply. "Why, yes!" said the Cibot, drawing from her pocket one hundred francs, and putting them on the edge of the table. "To die assassinated! " "Ah! see there, you would have the Grand Deal. But console yourself, all the people assassinated in the cards do not die." "But, is that possible, Mame Fontaine?" "Ah, my pretty little one, I, I don't know anything about it You would rap at the door of the future, and I have pulled the cord, that is all and he came ! " "What he ? " said Madame Cibot "Well, the Spirit, whatever it is," replied the sorceress, impatiently. "Good-bye, Madame Fontaine," replied the other. "I didn't know the Grand Deal, you've frightened me terribly. See, there!" "Madame does not put herself twice a month into that state!" said the servant-woman, reconducting Madame Cibot to the landing. "She is all broken up by the pain of it, it uses her up so. Now she will eat some mutton chops and sleep for three hours" Once in the street, as she walked along, Madame Cibot did as inquirers after advice of all kinds do. She believed in that which the prophecy offered that would favor her interests, and she doubted the misfortunes promised. The next day, confirmed in her resolutions, she put everything at work to find 200 THE POOR RELATIONS some way to enrich herself by acquiring a part of the Pons museum. Thus for some time she enter- tained no other thought than that of how to combine the means of success. The phenomenon which we have just explained, that of the concentration of moral forces in the common people who, never hav- ing used their intellectual faculties like the educated classes, in daily activity, find these faculties strong and powerful at the moment when their minds become possessed of that formidable weapon called a fixed idea, now appeared in Madame Cibot in a superior degree. Just as a fixed idea can produce miracles of adroitness and miracles of sentiment, this woman, urged by cupidity, became as pow- erful as a Nucingen at bay, as quick-witted beneath her stupidity as the seductive La Palferine. A few days later, seeing Remonencq opening his shop at about seven o'clock in the morning, she went to him with the slyness of a cat "What is to be done to find out the truth about the value of those things piled up there in the apart- ment of my gentlemen ? " asked she of him. "Oh, that's easy enough," replied the curiosity dealer in his frightful Auvergnat dialect, which it is useless to continue to reproduce for the clearness of the narrative. "If you will deal fair with me, I will tell you of an appraiser, a very honest man, who will know the value of those pictures to a penny." "Who?" "Monsieur Magus, a Jew, who only does busi- ness now for his own pleasure." THE CI EOT AND MADAME FONTAINE "You will succeed ! though nothing in this affair will happen as you think" she said. " You will have many steps to take. But you will gather the fruits of your labors. You will do very great wrong, but it will be with you as with all those who are near sick people and who covet a part of their inheritance. You will be helped in this evil work by people of consequence Later " * Elie Magus, whose name is too well-known to readers of The Human Comedy to require a descrip- tion of him here, had retired from the business of selling pictures and curiosities, in which, as a merchant, he had followed the conduct which Pons had pursued as an amateur. The celebrated ap- praisers, the late Henry, MM. Pigeot and Moret, Theret, Georges and Roe'hn, in fact all the experts of the Musee, were children as compared with filie Magus, who could discover a chef-d'oeuvre under the dirt of a century, who knew all the schools and the signatures of all the painters. This Jew, who came originally from Bordeaux to Paris, had given up business in 1835, without, however, giving up the miserable appearance which he retained, according to the habits of the majority of Jews, so faithful is this race to its traditions. During the Middle Ages, persecution obliged the Jews to go in rags so as to disarm suspicion, to always complain and whine, and cry, in their pov- erty. The compulsions of former times have de- veloped, as always happens, a race-instinct of the people, an endemic vice, filie Magus, by dint of buying diamonds and reselling them, of bargaining for pictures and laces, valuable curiosities and enamels, fine sculptures and old goldsmith's work, possessed an immense fortune of unknown amount (201) 202 THE POOR RELATIONS acquired in this business, now become so consider- able. In fact, the number of such dealers has increased tenfold within the last twenty years in Paris, the city in which all the curiosities of the world give each other rendezvous. As for pictures, there are but three cities in which they are sold Rome, London, and Paris. Elie Magus lived in the Chaussee des Minimes, a short, wide street which leads to the Place Royale, in which he owned an old mansion bought for a piece of bread, as they say, in 1831. This magnificent structure contained one of the most sumptuous apartments, decorated in the time of Louis XV., for it was the old Hotel Maulaincourt Built by the celebrated president of the Cour des Aides, it escaped, thanks to its situation, from being plundered during the Revolution. If the old Jew, contrary to Israel itish traditions, had decided to become a proprietor, we may well be sure he had his reasons. The old man was ending, as we all end, by a mania developed into a craze. Though he was as miserly as his friend, the late Gobseck, he allowed himself to be influenced by his admi- ration for the masterpieces he dealt in; but his taste, becoming more and more refined and difficult to satisfy, had ended by becoming one of those passions which are only permissible to kings when they are rich and when they love the arts. Like the second king of Prussia, whose enthusiasm for grenadiers was only awakened when the subject had of height at least six feet, and who expended COUSIN PONS 203 inordinate sums in increasing his living museum of grenadiers, the retired dealer grew enthusiastic over none but irreproachable canvases left as the master had painted them, and of the highest order of execution. Thus, Elie Magus was never absent from one of the great sales, he visited all of the picture marts, and traveled all over Europe. This soul, devoted to lucre, cold as a glacier, warmed up at the sight of a chef-d'oeuvre, precisely as a liber- tine, weary of women, is moved at the sight of a per- fect young girl, and devotes himself to the search of beauty without defect This Don Juan of pictures, this worshipper of the ideal, found then, in this admiration, enjoyment superior to that which the miser receives from contemplation of his gold. He lived in a seraglio of beautiful pictures. These masterpieces, lodged as the children of princes should be, occupied the whole of the first floor of the mansion which Elie Magus had restored, and with what splendor ! Before the windows hung curtains of the most beautiful gold brocade of Venice. On the floors were extended the most magnificent carpets of the Savonnerie. The pic- tures, to the number of about one hundred, were set off by the most splendid frames, regilded, all of them, with taste, by the only gilder of Paris whom Elie found conscientious, by Servais, to whom the old Jew taught the art of gilding with English gold, a leaf infinitely superior to that of the French gold- beaters. Servais is in the art of gilding what Thouvenin is in that of binding, an artist in love 204 THE POOR RELATIONS with his own work. The windows of this apart- ment were protected by iron shutters. lie Magus inhabited two rooms under the mansard of the second floor, poorly furnished, full of his ragged clothes, and smelling of Jewry, for he was ending his life as he had always lived. The first floor, entirely given up to pictures, for which the Jew still continued to barter, and to cases arriving from foreign countries, contained an immense atelier, where worked always exclusively for him, Moret, the most skillful of our picture re- storers, and one of those whom the Musee should employ. There, too, was the apartment of his daughter, the fruit of his old age, a Jewess as beau- tiful as are all the Jewesses when the Asiatic type reappears pure and noble in them. Noemi, guarded by two fanatical female Jewish servants, had for outpost-guard, a Polish Jew named Abramko, com- promised by an extraordinary chance, in the Polish insurrection, and whom lie Magus had rescued for purposes of self-interest Abramko, the concierge of this silent, gloomy, and desolate house, occupied a lodge protected by three dogs of remarkable ferocity, one a Newfoundland, the second from the Pyrenees, the third an English bull-dog. These were the precautions on which was estab- lished the security of the Jew, who traveled from home without fear, who "slept on both ears, " dread- ing no attempt against his daughter, his first treasure, nor against his pictures, nor against his gold. Abramko received every year two hundred COUSIN PONS 205 francs more than the preceding year and was to receive nothing more at the death of Magus, who was meantime training him to become the money- lender of the quarter. Abramko never admitted any one into the house without having first examined him through the formidable iron grating of the door. This concierge, of Herculean strength, adored Magus, as Sancho Panza adored Don Quixote. The dogs, shut up during the day, were not fed ; but at night Abramko let them out, and they were com- pelled, by an astute arrangement of the old Jew, to keep each one his appointed station one in the garden at the foot of a pole from the top of which hung a piece of meat, the other in the court-yard, at the foot of a similar pole, and a third in the great hall on the ground floor. You will understand that these dogs, who in the first place guarded the house by instinct, were additionally guarded themselves by hunger, and that they would not have quit, for the loveliest female of their race, their place at the foot of their poles of Cockaigne ; they would not have left to investigate anything whatever. If a stranger appeared, the dogs, all three of them, imagined that the unknown was after their meat, which was not let down to them till the morning when Abrarnko awoke. This infernal combination had an immense advantage. The dogs never barked. The genius of Magus had advanced them to the grade of sav- ages, and they had become as silent as a Mohican. Now we may see what happened. On a certain occasion, certain malefactors emboldened by this 206 THE POOR RELATIONS silence, thought it would be an easy thing to "crack" the strong-box of this Jew. One of them, selected to lead the assault, climbed over the wall of the garden and started to descend on the other side; the bull-dog let him alone, although he had heard him perfectly; but as soon as the foot of this gentleman came within reach of his jaw, he bit it off neatly and ate it up. The thief had the courage to recross the wall, stepping on the bone of his leg until he fell fainting in the arms of his comrades, who carried him off. This Parisian event, for the "Gazette des Tribunaux" did not fail to report this delightful episode of the Parisian nights, was taken for a hoax. Magus, at this time seventy-five years of age, was quite likely to live to be one hundred. Rich as he was, he lived like the Remonencqs. Three thousand francs, including all his luxury for his daughter, comprised all his expenses. No existence was ever more methodical than that of this old man. He arose at daybreak, he ate a piece of bread rubbed with garlic, a breakfast which lasted him until the dinner hour. The dinner of a monastic frugality, was a family repast. Between the hour when he rose and midday, the fanatic employed his time in wandering around the apartment which was adorned by his masterpieces. He dusted everything himself, furniture, pictures; he admired everything in turn without any sense of weariness; then he descended into his daughter's apartment and intoxi- cated himself with the happiness of fathers, after COUSIN PONS 207 which he departed on his expeditions around Paris, where he watched over all the auction sales, went to all the exhibitions, etc. When some masterpiece appeared under the conditions which he deemed essential, the life of this man became animated; he had a stroke to make, an affair to bring to a conclu- sion, a battle of Marengo to gain. He piled one craftiness on another, in order to obtain his new Sultana at the lowest price. He possessed a map of Europe, a map on which the locality of all the chefs- d'oeuvre were marked, and he commissioned his co-religionists in every place to watch over them in his interests for a certain price. But what recom- penses for such pains ! The two lost pictures of Raphael, so persistently sought for by the Raphaelists, Magus owned them ! He owned also the original of the Maitresse du Oiorgione, the woman for whom the painter died, and the so-called originals are only copies of this glorious canvas, which is worth five hundred thou- sand francs in the estimate of Magus. This Jew treasured the masterpieces of Titian, "The En- tombment," a picture painted for Charles V., which was sent by the great master to the great Emperor, accompanied by a letter written wholly in Titian's hand, which letter is glued to the bottom of the canvas. He has of the same painter the original sketch from which all the portraits of Philip II. were made. The ninety-seven other pictures were all of this importance and all equally distinguished. Thus Magus scorned our Musee, 208 THE POOR RELATIONS ravished by the sunlight which destroys the noblest pictures, in passing through the panes of glass, whose action is like that of lenses. No picture gal- lery is safe unless lighted from the ceiling. Magus closed and opened the shutters of his museum him- self, displaying as much care and as many precau- tions for his pictures as he did for his daughter, his other idol. Ah! the old picture-maniac knew well the laws of painting ! According to him, the master- pieces had a life of their own, their times and sea- sons; their beauty depended upon the light which came to color them ; he spoke of them as the Dutch- men formerly spoke of their tulips, and he went to see such and such a picture at the very hour when the masterpiece was resplendent in all its glory, when the weather was fine and clear. He was himself a living picture in the middle of these motionless paintings, this little old man clothed in a shabby frock-coat, a decennial silk waistcoat, a pair of dirty trousers, his bald head, his hollow cheeks, his stubby and straggling white beard, his menacing and pointed chin, and mouth empty of teeth, his eyes, brilliant as those of his dogs, his bony, fleshless hands, his nose, like an obelisk, his skin wrinkled and cold, smiling at these beautiful creations of genius! A Jew, surrounded by his three millions, will always be one of the finest sights humanity can offer. Robert Medal, our great actor, sublime as he is, cannot attain to this poesy. Paris is the city of the world which conceals the greatest number of originals of this species COUSIN PONS 209 having a religion at their hearts. The "eccentrics" of London end always by becoming disgusted with the objects of their worship, just as they become dis- gusted with life itself; whereas in Paris these monomaniacs live forever with their fancies in a happy concubinage of spirits. You will often see coming towards you here such beings as Pons or Elie Magus, very poorly clothed, the nose like that of the perpetual secretary of the French Academy, forever in the air, seeming to care for nothing, t< feel nothing, paying no attention to women, to the shops, wandering seemingly haphazard, their pockets empty, their heads apparently still emptier, and you ask yourself to what Parisian tribe they can belong. Very well, these men are millionaires, col- lectors, the most passionate individuals upon the earth, individuals who are capable of venturing even into the muddy ways watched by the correc- tional police in order to get possession of a cup, of a picture, of a rare treasure, as in fact 6lie Magus did one day in Germany. Such was the expert to whom Remonencq con- ducted mysteriously Madame Cibot Remonencq consulted lie Magus whenever he chanced to meet him on the boulevards. The Jew had at various times loaned, through Abramko, certain sums of money to this ancient messenger whose honesty was known to him. The Chaussee des Minimes being a few steps from the Rue de Normandie, the two accomplices in this projected stroke arrived there in ten minutes. "You are going to see," said Remonencq, "the richest of all the old curiosity-dealers, the greatest connoisseur there is in Paris." Madame Cibot was stupefied when she found her- self in the presence of a little old man, wrapped in a riding-coat unworthy of being mended even by Cibot, who was overlooking the work of his re- storer, a painter employed in repairing pictures in a cold room on this vast ground floor ; then, catching a glance from his eyes, as full of cold malevolence as those of a cat, she trembled. "What do you want, Remonencq?" he said. "It's about estimating some pictures; and there is only you in Paris who could say to a poor copper- smith like me what he ought to give for them when he has not, like you, the thousands and hundreds! " "Where are they? " said Elie Magus. (21!) 212 THE POOR RELATIONS "Here is the concierge of the house where their owner lives and with whom I have arranged " "What is the owner's name?" "Monsieur Pons," said Madame Cibot "I don't know him," replied Magus, with an indifferent air, gently pressing at the same time, his own foot against that of his restorer. Moret, this painter, knew the value of Pons's collection and he had suddenly looked up. This warning could not have been hazarded but under the eyes of such a pair as Remonencq and Madame Cibot The Jew had taken the moral measure of this woman by a glance in which his eye served him as the scales of a money-changer. The pair were undoubtedly ignorant that the good man Pons and Magus had often measured swords. In fact, these two fierce amateurs were filled with envy of each other. Hence the old Jew had just experienced an internal shock. Never had he hoped to be able to penetrate into the seraglio so well guarded. The Pons collection was the only one in Paris which could rival the Magus collection. The Jew had had, twenty years later than Pons, the same idea ; but in his quality of amateur dealer, the Pons collection had been as tightly closed to him as to Dusommerard. Pons and Magus were both at heart, jealous of all approach. Neither of them liked that celebrity which is ordinarily sought by the owners of choice cabinets. To be able to examine the magnificent collection of the poor musician was for filie Magus the same happiness COUSIN PONS 213 as would be that of an amateur of women to be able to slip into the boudoir of a beautiful mis- tress whom his friend conceals from him. The great respect which Remonencq showed to this strange personage and the influence which all real power, even the most mysterious, exercises, made Madame Cibot obedient and complying. She lost the auto- cratic tone with which she was in the habit of con- versing with the tenants and her two gentlemen, she accepted the conditions of Magus, and promised to introduce him into the Pons collection that very day. It was admitting the enemy into the heart of the fortress, it was plunging a poignard into the heart of Pons, who for the last ten years had strictly forbidden her to admit any one, no matter who, who carried always with him his keys, and whom she had hitherto obeyed, although she had privately shared the opinions of Schmucke on the subject of bric-a-brac. The fact was that the good Schmucke in discoursing about these magnificent "kneeck- knocks" and deploring the folly of Pons, had incul- cated his contempt for all these antiquities into Madame Cibot's breast and thus for a long time had protected the Musee-Pons from all invasion. Since Pons had been 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 at dinner, endeavored to make up for everything by keeping together their common clientele; but all his strength was absorbed by this task, so much did his grief overwhelm him. 214 THE POOR RELATIONS In seeing this poor man so sad, the pupils and the people at the theatre all of them informed of the illness of Rons asked for news of him, and the grief of the pianist was so great that he obtained even from the indifferent, the same grimace of conven- tional sensibility which is bestowed in Paris on the greatest catastrophes. The very principle of the life of the good German was attacked in him as well as in Pons. Schmucke suffered at once from his own grief and in his friend's sickness. Thus he would speak of Pons during the .half of the lesson he was giving; he interrupted so artlessly a demon- stration, to ask of himself how his friend was feel- ing, that the young school-girl listened with interest to his account of Pons's sickness. Between two lessons he would rush to the Rue de Normandie to see Pons for a quarter of an hour. Frightened at the emptiness of their common purse, and alarmed by Madame Cibot, who for the last fortnight had been increasing to her utmost, the expenses of the sickness, the piano-professor felt his inward an- guish dominated by a courage of which he would never have believed himself capable. For the first time in his life he was anxious to earn money so that funds might not be lacking in the household. When some school-girl, really touched by the situa- tion of the two friends, would ask of Schmucke how he could leave Pons all alone, he replied with the sublime smile of the dupes : "Montenmoiselle, vehaf Montame Zipod! a dray- zure! a bear! ! Bonsees daken gareof lige a brince." COUSIN PONS 215 So, while Schmucke was trotting the streets, the Cibot was mistress of the apartment and of the sick man. How could Pons, who had eaten nothing for fifteen days and who lay helpless, so that she was obliged to lift him herself and place him on a sofa while she made his bed, how could he watch his soi-disant guardian angel? Naturally, she had made her visit to dlie Magus while Schmucke was eating his breakfast She returned just at the moment when the Ger- man was bidding the sick man good-bye; for, ever since the revelation of the possible fortune of Pons, she had no longer left her celibate, she brooded over him like a hen! She settled herself on a comforta- ble sofa at the foot of the bed and diverted Pons by retailing to him all that sort of gossip in which such women excel. Grown wheedling, gentle, attentive, anxious, she wound herself into the con- fidence of the good Pons with a Machiavellian clev- erness, as we shall presently see. Frightened by the prediction of the Grand Deal of Madame Fon- taine, she had promised herself that she would suc- ceed in her plans by none but gentle means, by a wickedness purely moral, to get herself mentioned in the testament of her gentleman. Her ten years' ignorance of the value of the Pons museum she con- sidered as ten years of disinterested attachment and probity, and she now proposed to draw upon that magnificent capital. Since the day when Remonencq with a golden word had hatched in the heart of this woman a serpent hidden in its shell for twenty-five years, the desire of being rich, she had nourished this serpent on all the poisonous leaven which strews the bottom of human hearts, and we shall now see how she executed the advice which this serpent hissed in her ear. (217) 218 THE POOR RELATIONS "Well, has he taken his drink, my cherubin? Is he better ? " she said to Schmucke. "No petter, my tear Montame Zipod, no petter," answered the German, wiping away a tear. "Bah! you are too easily frightened, my dear monsieur. You must take things easier if Cibot lay at the point of death I couldn't be more desolate than you are. Come! our cherubin has a good constitution. And then, don't you see, he seems to have been virtuous ! you never know how long the virtuous folks can live! He is very sick, that's true, but with all the care I give him I will pull him through. You be easy and go to your work. I will keep him company and see that he drinks his pints of barley water." "Put vor you, I moost tie of anchziety," said Schmucke, pressing the hand of his good house- keeper in his own with a look full of confidence. The Cibot entered the sick man's bedroom, wip- ing her eyes. "What is the matter, Madame Cibot? " said Pons. "It is Monsieur Schmucke that has upset me. He's crying over you as if you were dead!" she said. "Well, though you are not well, you are not yet sick enough to be cried over ; but that has affected me so. Mon Dieu ! am I not a fool to love people so much, and to care more for you than I do for Cibot! For, after all, you are nothing to me, we are related only through the first woman ; and yet, here I am all upside down as soon as anything's the matter with you, on my word of honor. I'd cut off COUSIN PONS 2ig my hand, the left one of course, here before you, just to see you coming and going, eating and filibus- tering with them dealers like you used to. If I had ever had a child I think that I should have loved it as I love you, just! Drink this, my darling, drink it all down. Will you drink, monsieur! Didn't M. Poulain say 'if he does not want to go to Pere- Lachaise, M. Pons must drink every day as many pailfuls of water as an Auvergnat sells.' Come, then, you must drink! " "But I do drink, my good Cibot so much and so much that my stomach is drowned " "There, that's right," said the woman, putting down the empty glass. "You will save your life that way. Dr. Poulain had a patient like you who never had no nursing, whom his children abandoned, and he died of this very disease just because he wouldn't drink! So you must drink, you see, my lamb! they buried him only two months ago. Don't you know that if you die, my dear monsieur, you will carry off with you that good Schmucke? He is like a baby, word of honor. Ah, how he loves you, that dear lamb of a man! no, never woman loved man like that! He can't eat nor drink, he has grown thin in the last two weeks, as much as you, who are only skin and bones That makes me jealous, for 1 am so much attached to you; but I haven't come to that yet, I haven't yet lost my appetite, on the contrary! What with running up and down stairs all day, I get so tired in my legs that in the evening I just tumble down like a 220 THE POOR RELATIONS lump of lead. Everybody can see how I neglect my poor Cibot for you, so that Mademoiselle Remonencq has to get him his victuals, and he grumbles at me because everything is bad ! As for that, I tell him we should all learn how to suffer for others and that you are much too sick to be left to yourself And then you are not well enough for not to have a nurse! I would like to see myself letting you pay a nurse here, I who have taken care of you and your affairs for the last ten years And they think of nothing but their mouth ! they eat for ten, they are always wanting their wine, their sugar, their warming pans, their easy times And then how they rob the sick people, when the sick people will not put them in their wills Get a nurse in here for to-day, but to-morrow you would find a picture, some curiosity or other gone " "Oh, Madame Cibot," cried Pons, beside himself at the idea. "Don't leave me. Don't let anybody touch anything here! " "I am here," answered the Cibot, "as long as I have the strength I will be here! be easy! Mon- sieur Poulain, who maybe had an eye on your treasures, didn't he want me to get you a nurse ! how I snuffed him out for you ! 'There ain't no one but me,' I said to him, 'that monsieur wants, he knows my ways, and I know his. ' And he held his tongue. But a nurse, they are all thieves ! I hate them kind of women! You will see how schem- ing they are. Once there was an old gentleman notice that it was Dr. Poulain who told me this COUSIN PONS 221 now, a Madame Sabatier, a woman thirty-six years old, who used to sell slippers at the Palais you know the row of shops they have demolished down at the Palais?" Pons made an affirmative sign. "Good. Well, that woman did not get on because of her man, who drank all the time and who died at last, so they say, of spontaneous imbustion ; but she was a handsome woman, it must be said, only that did not profit her, although she had, it was said, lawyers for her good friends So, when it came to the break-up, she went out nursing women in childbed, and lived when at home, in the Rue Barre- du-Bec. She went out to nurse like that, and an old gentleman, who had, saving your presence, a disease of the lurinairy organs, and they sounded him like an artesian well, and he had to be taken such care of that she had to sleep on a cot-bed in his chamber. Is it believable, such things as that! But you will tell me, 'men don't respect nothing, they are all so selfish ! ' Well now, you see, in talking with him, you will understand she was always there, she cheered him up, she told him stories, she got him to talk, just as we are here, that is so, both of them chatting She learned that his nephews, the sick man had nephews, were monsters, that they worried him, and, to cut a long story short, that his sickness came from his nephews. Very well, my dear monsieur, she saved that gentleman, she became his wife, and they have a child which is superb, and to whom Mame 222 THE POOR RELATIONS Bordevin, who keeps the butcher-shop, corner of the Rue Chariot, and who was a relative to that woman, was godmother And wasn't that a piece of luck! I, I am married; but I ain't got no children, and I can say this, that it's Cibot's fault, who loves me too much, for if I wanted to well, that's enough. But what should we ever have done with a family, I and my Cibot, when we haven't got a sou to our name, after thirty years of honesty, my dear mon- sieur ! But what comforts me is that I have never taken a Hard of anybody else's. Never have I done wrong to any one Now, just suppose that one could say, since in six weeks you will be on your pins again, sauntering along the boulevard; very well, that you put me in your will, well, now, I shouldn't have any peace till I'd found your heirs to give it back to them so much I am afraid of anything that I haven't earned by the sweat of my brow. You will say to me, 'But, Mame Cibot, do not torment yourself like that; you have fairly earned it, you have taken care of those gentlemen as though they were your own babies, you must have saved them a thousand francs a year ' For in my place, don't you see, monsieur, there would have been many cooks that has got a thousand francs laid by. 'It's only fair then, if that worthy gentleman has left you a little annuity! ' they would say to me, we may suppose. Very well. No, I, I am disinterested, I don't know how women can do good for their own interests That is no longer doing good at all, is it, monsieur ? I do not COUSIN PONS 223 go to the church, I ! I haven't no time; but my con- science tells me what is right There now, do not agitate yourself like that, my lamb! do not scratch yourself! Mon Dieu! how yellow you are! you are so yellow that you are getting brown How queer it is that one can become in twenty days like a lemon! Well, honesty is the treasure of poor people, they need to possess something! Well, let's suppose you came to the worst, I would be the first to say to you that you should give everything that belongs to you to Monsieur Schmucke. It is your duty to do so, for he is himself all the family you've got! He loves you, that man, like a dog loves his master." "Ah, yes!" said Rons, "I've never been loved in my life but by him " "Oh, monsieur!" said Madame Cibot, "you are not kind; and I, then, don't I love you? " "I do not say that, my dear Madame Cibot " "Good ! There, you go and take me for a servant, a common cook, as if I had no heart! Ah, Mon Dieu! split yourself, then, for eleven years, taking care of two old bachelors ! think of nothing but their comfort, did I not rummage over ten fruit shops and let people make jokes on me just to get you the best Brie cheese, didn't I go all the way to the Halle, so that you might have fresh butter; and take care of everything so that in ten years I have broken noth- ing for you, or even chipped a single thing? Be, then, like a mother to her children! And you will for all this hear yourself called 'My dear Madame 224 THE POOR RELATIONS Cibot,' which proves plainly that there is not a bit of feeling for you in the heart of the old gentleman whom you have taken care of like a son of a king, for the little King of Rome was never cared for as you've been! Will you bet that he was taken care of as you ? Why, the proof is that he died in the flower of his age. Look here, monsieur, you are not just You are an ungrateful ! It is because I am only a poor concierge. Ah, Mon Dieu ! you then think, too, that we are no better than dogs? " "But, my dear Madame Cibot " "Come, now. You who know such a lot, explain to me why we are always treated like that, we con- cierges, why no one believes that we have any feeling; why do people make fun of us, in these times when they are talking about equality! I, I am not worth, then, as much as any other woman ! I, who was one of the handsomest women in Paris, so that they called me 'the beautiful oyster-girl,' and I used to receive seven or eight declarations of love every day! And if I wished to have them still ! See, monsieur, you know well that scrap of an iron-dealer, who is down at the door? Very well! If I was a widow, just suppose, he would marry me with his eyes shut, so much he has them opened for me that he says to me every day: 'Oh, what fine arms you've got, Mame Cibot! I dreamed last night that they were bread and that I was the butter being spread on them ! ' Look, monsieur, there's a pair of arms for you! " She turned up her sleeve and showed the most COUSIN PONS 225 magnificent arm in the world, as white and as fresh as her hand was red and wrinkled; an arm plump, round, and dimpled, and which, coming forth from its swathing of coarse merino, as a blade is drawn from its scabbard, dazzled the eyes of poor Rons, who dared not look at it too long. "And," she resumed, "which has opened as many hearts as my knife has opened oysters! Very well, it belongs to Cibot, and I have been doing very wrong to neglect that poor dear man who would throw himself over a precipice at the first word I would say to him, for you, monsieur, who call me 'my dear Madame Cibot,' when I have done impos- sible things for you " "Do listen to me," said the sick man, "I can't call you my mother nor my wife " "No, never in my life, never in all my days, will I attach myself again! " "But, let me speak!" said Pons, "see, I have just spoken of Schmucke. " "Monsieur Schmucke! Ah, there's a heart!" said she. "Now he loves me, he does, because he is poor! It is riches which makes men unfeeling, and you are rich! Very well, have a nurse, you will see what a life she will lead you! and how she will torment you like a flea The doctor will say that you must drink, and she will only give you something to eat! She will get you buried so she can rob you ! You don't deserve to have a Madame Cibot! Go on! When Monsieur Poulain comes you will tell him to send you a nurse!" is 226 THE POOR RELATIONS "But sacrebleu! just listen to me," cried the sick man in anger. "I was not speaking of women, when I mentioned my friend Schmucke! I know well enough that there are no other hearts that truly love me but yours and Schmucke's! " "Do not irritate yourself like that!" cried the Cibot, throwing herself upon Pons and laying him back in his bed by main strength. "How can it be that I do not love you? " said poor Pons. "You love me, then, really and truly? There, there, forgive me, monsieur," she said, weeping and wiping her eyes. "Very well, yes, you love me, just as one loves a servant, that's all ! a ser- vant to whom you throw an annuity of six hundred francs, like a piece of bread thrown to a dog in his kennel!" "Oh, Madame Cibot," cried Pons, "what do you take me for ! You don't know me ! " "Ah, you do love me better than that! " she ex- claimed, meeting Pons'seyes; "you do love your good, fat Cibot, like a mother? Very well, that's right, I am your mother, you are both my children ! Ah, if I did but know those who have caused you unhappiness, I would risk getting myself before the Assize Court and even in the jail, for I would tear their eyes out ! those people deserve to be put to death at the Barriere Saint- Jacques! and even that is too good for such villains ! You so good, so ten- der, for you have a heart of gold, you were created and put into the world to make some woman happy COUSIN PONS 227 yes, you would have rendered her happy that may be seen, you were cut out for it from the very first when I saw how you lived with Monsieur Schmucke I said to myself, 'No, Monsieur Pons has wasted his life. He was made for a good husband ' Come ! you are a man to love a woman ! " "Ah, yes!" said Pons, "and yet I never had one!" "Really?" said the Cibot with an insinuating air, drawing nearer to him, and taking his hand, "you don't know what it is to have a mistress who would do anything for her friend? Is it possible! I, in your place, I would not go from here into the other world without having known the greatest hap- piness that there is on earth! Poor lamb! If I was what I have been, on my honor, I'd leave Cibot for you! And, with a nose cut like that, for you have a fine, proud nose ! How have you managed, my poor cherub ? You will tell me, 'all the women do not know about men,' and it is a misfortune that they do marry so at haphazard, it's pitiful to see them. I, I thought you had mistresses by the dozen, dancers, actresses, duchesses seeing how much you were away ! When I saw you going out, I used to say always to Cibot, 'See, there is Mon- sieur Pons, who is going gallivanting!' Honor bright! 1 said that, I was so sure that you were a favorite with the women! Why, heaven created you for love why, my dear little monsieur, I saw that the day on which you dined here for the first time. Oh, weren't you touched with the pleasure 228 THE POOR RELATIONS you gave to Monsieur Schmucke ! And he, wasn't he crying about it still the next day, and saying to me, 'Montame Zipod, he tid tine here,' that I cried for it myself, just like a fool, also. And how mis- erable he was when you recommenced your wan- derings and went out to dine in society! Poor man ! Never was such desolation seen ! Ah, you have good reason to make him your heir! Yes, indeed, he is a whole family for you in himself, this worthy, this dear old man! Do not forget him! because, if you do, God will never receive you into his paradise, where he never ought to let any one enter who hasn't been grateful toward his friends and left them an income." Pons made vain efforts to reply, the Cibot talked as the wind blows. If means have been invented to arrest the motion of steam-engines, that of stop- ping the tongue of a concierge would be too much for the genius of all the inventors. "I know what you are going to say!" she re- sumed. "Now, it don't kill nobody, my dear mon- sieur, to make his testament when he is sick ; and if I was in your place I would, for fear of accidents, I would not want to abandon that poor sheep, no, for he is the blessed fool of the good Lord ; he knows nothing of anything; I would not want to leave him to the mercy of those rascals, the business men, nor to relations neither, who are the scum of the earth ! See now, has there been any one of them who has been here to see you for twenty days ? And you are going to give to them your property ! Do you COUSIN PONS 229 know, they say that everything that is here is worth something! " "Well, yes," said Pons. "Remonencq, who knows you are an amateur, and who deals in such things, says that he would give you thirty thousand francs of annuity if you would let him have your pictures after your death now there's a chance! In your place I'd take it! But I thought at first that he was making fun of me when he said that to me you ought to tell Mon- sieur Schmucke of the value of all these things here, for he is a man that they would cheat like a baby; he has not the least idea what the beautiful things you have here are worth! He has so little idea of it that he would give them away for a song, unless, for love of you, he would keep them all his life, if he should live after you, that is, for your death will kill him ! But I shall be here, I, I'll protect him against and from everything, I and Cibot" "Dear Madame Cibot," replied Pons, touched by this frightful garrulity, through which seemed to run the simple good feeling characteristic of the lower classes, "what would become of me without you and Schmucke? " "Ah, we are the only friends you've got in this world ! that is true enough ! But two kind hearts are worth all the families put together don't talk tome of families! They are like the tongue, as the old actor said all that there is of the best and of the worst Where, then, are your relatives? Have you any relatives? I have never seen them " 230 THE POOR RELATIONS "It is they who have laid me on a sick bed!" cried Pons, with a profound bitterness. "Ah, then you have got relations! " said the Cibot, starting up as if her seat had been of iron suddenly made red hot. "Ah, they must be a nice set, your relations! See there! here are twenty days, yes, this morning it is twenty days, that you have been at death's door, and they ain't none of them come to ask you how you are ! That is a little stronger than coffee, that is! But in your place, I would sooner leave all my money to the foundling hospital than to give them one liard! " "Well, my dear Madame Cibot, I am going to leave all that I possess to my young cousin, the daughter of my first cousin, the President Camusot, you know, the magistrate who came here one morn- ing about two months ago." "Ah, a little fat man who sent his servants to beg your pardon for the stupidity of his wife how the waiting-maid asked me questions about you, an affected old thing, whom I had a great mind to dust her velvet cloak for her with the handle of my broom! Did any one ever see a waiting-maid before wear a velvet cloak ? No, on my word of honor, the world's turned upside down ! what's the use of making revolutions? Dine twice a day, if you can, you rich guzzlers! But I say that the laws are all useless, that there is nothing any more sacred, if Louis-Philippe don't keep up a proper distinction of classes; for, in fact, if we are all equal, is it not so, monsieur, a waiting-maid ought COUSIN PONS 231 not to have a velvet cloak when I, Madame Cibot, with thirty years of honesty to boast of, I haven't any There's a pretty state of things! People ought to be seen for what they are. A lady's maid is a lady's maid, just as I, I am a concierge ! Why do they wear their epaulettes with a fringe of gold tassels in the army? Everybody in their own rank, I say! See, now! Do you want me to tell you what will be the fine end of all this ? Very well. France will be ruined ! And under the Em- peror, is it not so, monsieur, things went different? Thus I said to Cibot: 'Look here, do you see, my man, a house in which there are lady's maids in velvet cloaks, there are people without no bowels of compassion ' " "Without bowels of compassion, that is it," replied Rons. And Rons related all his griefs and his mortifica- tions to Madame Cibot, who poured forth invectives against the relations and testified the most extreme tenderness at each phase of this melancholy recital. Finally, she wept! To understand this sudden intimacy between the old musician and Madame Cibot, it is enough to consider the situation of a celibate grievously 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 finding this day all the longer that he was delivered up to the indefinable sufferings with which liver diseases blacken even the brightest lives, and that, deprived of his numerous occupations, he had fallen into the Parisian marasmus, he longed for all that he had been accustomed to see gratuitously in the streets of Paris. This profound and gloomy solitude, this suffering, whose effects are felt even more in the moral than in the physical being, the inanition of life all this drives a celibate, and, above all, one who is already feeble in character and whose heart is tender and credulous, to attach himself to who- ever takes care of him, just as a drowning man clings to a plank. Thus Pons listened with eager- ness to all Madame Cibot's gossip. Schmucke, Madame Cibot, and the Doctor Poulain were to him the whole of humanity, as his bed-room was the universe. If, usually, all sick persons concentrate their attention on the little round which their eyes can see, and if their egotism takes the form of sub- ordinating themselves to the people and the things (233) 234 THE POOR RELATIONS of that sick room, we may imagine of what an old bachelor is capable without domestic affections, and who has never known love. In the course of twenty days, Rons had been brought, at moments, to regret that he had not married Madeleine Vivet! Therefore, in these same twenty days, Madame Cibot had already gained an immense hold over the patient's mind, who saw himself lost without her ; for, as to Schmucke, he was only a second self for the poor sick man. The wonderful art of the Cibot consisted, unknown, 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 perfectly well that the Jew and Remonencq had arrived. "Don't make any noise, gentlemen," she said, "lest he should suspect something! for he is mighty sharp when it is anything about his treasures." "It will be enough just to walk through the room," said the Jew, who had come provided with an opera glass and a magnifier. The room which held the chief part of the Pons collection was one of those ancient salons such as architects employed by the French nobility designed, twenty-five feet wide by thirty long, and thirteen feet in height The pictures which Pons possessed, to the number of sixty-seven, were hung on the four walls of this salon, which was paneled in wood and painted in white and gold. But the white yel- lowed, the gold reddened, with time, and offered only COUSIN PONS 235 harmonious tones which did not conflict with the pictures. Fourteen statues raised on their columns were placed either in the angles of the room or be- tween the pictures, on pedestals made by Boulle. Buffets of ebony, all carved and of a royal richness, adorned the lower part of the walls to the height of the elbow. These buffets contained the curiosities. In the middle of the salon a row of credence-tables in carved wood presented the greatest rarities of human workmanship, ivories, bronzes, wood- carvings, enamels, goldsmith's work, porcelains, etc. As soon as the Jew had entered this sanctuary he went straight to four masterpieces which he rec- ognized as the finest of this collection, and by masters whose works were lacking in his own. These were for him what are for the naturalists those desiderata which drive them to undertake journeys from the setting to the rising sun, to the tropics, over deserts, over prairies, across savannas, and through the depths of virgin forests. The first picture was by Sebastien del Piombo, the second, by Fra Bartolomeo della Porta, the third was a landscape by Hobbema, and the last, a portrait of a woman by Albert Durer four jewels! Sebastien del Piombo is, in the art of painting, like a brilliant point in which three schools had met, bringing each of them its highest qualities. Originally a Vene- tian painter, he went to Rome and took up the style of Raphael under the direction of Michael Angelo, who wished to pit him against Raphael and contest, in the person of one of his lieutenants, the supremacy 236 THE POOR RELATIONS of that sovereign-pontiff of art Thus this indolent genius had melted together Venetian color, Floren- tine composition, and the Raphaelesque manner, in the rare pictures which he deigned to paint, and of which the cartoons were designed, it is said, by Michael Angelo. The perfection to which this painter, thus armed with triple power, arrived, may be seen by studying in the museum of Paris, the portrait of Baccio Bandinelli, which may be com- pared with I'Homme au gant of Titian, with the por- trait of an Old Man in which Raphael combined his own perfection with that of Correggio, or with the Charles VIII. of Lionardo da Vinci, without this picture losing by the comparison. These four pearls are of the same order, the same quality of light, the same fulness, the same brilliancy, the same value. Human art can go no further. It is superior to nature, which can only make the original live its day. Of this great genius, of this palette immortal but of an incurable indolence, Pons possessed a Chevalier de Malte en Priere, painted on slate, of a freshness, a finish, and a depth greater even than those qualities in the portrait by Baccio Bandinelli. The Fra Bartolomeo, which represented The Holy Family, would have been taken for a picture by Raphael by many connoisseurs. The Hobbema should bring sixty thousand francs at public auc- tion. As to the Albert Diirer, this Portrait of a Woman was similar to that of the famous Hol^- schuer of Nuremberg, for which the kings of Bava- ria, of Holland, and of Prussia have on several COUSIN PONS 237 occasions, and vainly, offered two hundred thou- sand francs. Was she the wife or the daughter of the Chevalier Holzschuer, the friend of Albert Diirer? The hypothesis may be considered a certainty, for the woman of Pons's collection is represented in an attitude which supposes a pendant, and the heraldic insignia are disposed in the same manner in both portraits. Moreover, the atatis suce XLI. is in perfect accordance with the age given on the portrait so religiously guarded by the Holzschuer family in Nuremberg, and of which the engraving has recently been finished. Elie Magus had tears in his eyes as he looked alternately at these four masterpieces. "I will give you two thousand francs commission for each of those pictures, if you will help me to get them for forty thousand francs! " he whispered in the ear of the Cibot, stupefied at this fortune which fell from heaven. The admiration, or to speak more truly, the ecstasy of the Jew had produced such disorder in his rnind and in all his miserly habits that for once, as we see, his Jewish soul was overthrown. "What about me? " said Remonencq, who knew nothing of pictures. "Everything here is of equal value," whispered Magus slyly in the Auvergnat's ears. "Take any ten of the pictures at hazard and on the same con- ditions, and your fortune is made! " These three thieves were still looking at each other, each a prey to his voluptuous enjoyment, the greatest of all, the satisfaction of success in the pursuit of fortune, when the voice of the sick man rang out vibrating 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. "There now, do you wish to kill your- self? Well, now, it is not Monsieur Poulain, it is (239) 240 THE POOR RELATIONS that good Remonencq, who is so uneasy about you that he came to ask how you are! You are so beloved that all the house is astir about you. What are you afraid of?" "But it seemed to me that there were several of you there," said the sick man. "Several! Well, that's good. Ah, now! are you dreaming? You will end by going crazy, take my word for it! There, see now! " She went and opened the door quickly, made a sign to Magus to go away, and to Remonencq to come forward. "Well, my good monsieur," said the Auvergnat, for whose instruction she had spoken, "I came to hear how you are. The whole house is in a worry on your account Nobody likes that death should come into their house! And, besides, Papa Monistrol, whom you know very well, sent me to say that if you wanted any money, he was at your service. " "He sent you here to get a look at my bibelots ! " said the old collector, with a bitterness that was full of suspicion. In diseases of the liver, the patients nearly always develop special and momentary antipathies; they concentrate their ill-humor on some object or on some person, it does not matter what or who. Now, Rons imagined that some one was after his treasure, he was possessed with the fixed idea of watching over it, and he was constantly sending Schmucke to see if any one had slipped into his sanctuary. COUSIN PONS 241 "It is plenty fine enough, your collection, " said Remonencq astutely, "to tempt all thechineurs; I don't know much about high-class curiosities, but monsieur is thought to be so great a connoisseur that, though I am not well posted in these things, I would be willing to buy from monsieur with my eyes shut, if monsieur has sometimes need of money, for nothing costs like these cursed sicknesses why, my sister, in ten days, spent thirty sous for medicines, when she had her blood upset, and when she could have been well cured without that The doctors are cheats who profit by our weak- ness to " "Good-day; thank you, monsieur," replied Rons to the old-iron merchant, looking at him suspiciously. "I will show him the way out," said Madame Cibot, in a low voice, to her patient, "for fear he should touch anything." "Yes, yes," replied the sick man, thanking her with a look. The Cibot closed the door of the bed-room, an action which at once aroused Pons's suspicion. She found Magus standing motionless in front of the four pictures. This immobility, this rapt admiration, can be comprehended only by those whose souls are open to ideal beauty, to the ineffable senti- ment which causes the perfection of a work of art, and who remain rooted on their feet for hours in the museum before the Jocunda of Lionardo da Vinci, before the Antiope of Correggio, the master- piece of this painter, before la Maltresse du Titien, 16 242 THE POOR RELATIONS the Holy Family of Andrea del Sarto, before the Enfants entoures de fleurs of Dominichino, the little cameo of Raphael, his portrait of the Old Man, the greatest of all the masterpieces of art "Getaway without making any noise!" said she. GThe Jew went slowly, walking backwards, gazing t the pictures as he went, as a lover looks at a ^ .Distress to whom he bids adieu. When he was on the landing, the Cibot, to whom this earnest con- templation had given some ideas, tapped Magus on his skinny arm. "You must give me four thousand francs for each picture! if not, no bargain " "I am so poor!" said Magus. "If I want those pictures, it is for the pure love of art, my good lady!" "You are such a dry stick, my old fellow," said the concierge, "that I can imagine that kind of love. But if you do not promise me to-day sixteen thou- sand francs before Remonencq, to-morrow it will be twenty thousand." "I promise the sixteen, replied the Jew, fright- ened at the cupidity of this concierge. "By what can he swear, a Jew? " asked the Cibot of Remonencq. "You can trust him," said the old-iron merchant He is as honest a man as I am." "Very well. And you!" she demanded, "if I give you some of the pictures to sell, what will you pay me? " "Half the profits," said Remonencq promptly. COUSIN PONS 243 "I would rather have a sum down. I am not in the business," replied the Cibot "You understand very well making bargains!" said Elie Magus, smiling. "You would make a famous dealer." "I offer to go into partnership with her, body and goods," said the Auvergnat, taking Madame Cibot's plump arm and tapping it with the force of a hammer. "I don't ask of her anything else to put in the business but her beauty ! You are very wrong to hold on to your Turk of a Cibot and to his needle! Is it a little concierge who can enrich a beauty like you? Ah, what a figure you would cut in a shop on the boulevard, in the middle of all the curiosities, chattering with the customers and twist- ing them around your finger! Come, you leave that lodge of yours when you have feathered your nest here, and you will see what we will do, we two!" "Feathered my nest! " exclaimed the Cibot "I am incapable of taking from here so much as the value of a pin, do you hear Remonencq?" she cried. "I am known in the quarter as an honest woman, I am ! " Her eyes flamed. "There, there, don't get angry ! " said Elie Magus, "this Auvergnat seems to love you too much to mean to offend you." "How she would draw the customers! " cried the Auvergnat "Now be fair, my good fellows, " resumed Madame 244 THE POOR RELATIONS Cibot, pacified, "and consider for yourselves how I am placed here! Here's ten years that I have been wearing myself out, body and soul, for these two old bachelors there, without their ever having given me anything else but words. Remonencq can tell you how I've taken care of these two old chaps at a price, so that I lose twenty or thirty sous a day, all my savings have gone that way, 1 swear it by the soul of my mother ! the only author of my being that I have ever known ; it's as true as I am born, and as the daylight above us, and may my coffee poison me if I lie one centime's worth ! Well, then, here's one on 'em going to die, isn't that sure ? and he's the richest of these two men whom I've treated like my own children ! Would you believe it, my dear monsieur, that since the last twenty days, when I have been repeating to him that he's at death's door for M. Poulain has given him over ! this skinflint there has not said one word about putting me in his will any more than if I didn't know him ! My word of honor, we never get what's due us unless we take it, faith of an honest woman ; for as to trusting yourself to the heirs! I guess not! See now; words do not stink, all the world is blackguards! " "That's true," said filie Magus artfully, "and it is only such as we," he added, looking at Remonencq, "who are the really honest men " "Don't take me up," resumed the Cibot "I wasn't speaking of you persons pressing, as the old actor said, are always accepted ! I swear to you COUSIN PONS 245 that those two gentlemen owe me now nearly three thousand francs, that the little that 1 had is already spent for their medicines and their affairs, and supposing they don't give me anything for all that I've advanced! I am so stupid with my honesty that I don't dare to speak to 'em about it Now, you should know what business is, my good mon- sieur, would you advise me to go to a lawyer ? " "A lawyer," cried Remonencq, "you know a great deal more than all the lawyers put together ! " The sound of a heavy body falling on the floor of the dining-room echoed through the wide space of the staircase. "Ah! Mon Dieu!" cried the Cibot, "what's the matter? I do believe that it is my gentleman who has tumbled on the floor." She gave a push to the two accomplices who rushed downstairs with agility, and then flew into the dining-room where she saw Pons lying at full length, in his nightshirt, in a dead faint! She took the old man in her arms, lifted him up like a feather, and carried him to his bed. When she had laid him back in it, she put a burnt feather under his nose, wet his temples with Eau-de-Cologne, and brought him back to his senses. Then, when she saw the eyes of Pons open and that consciousness had returned, she placed her arms akimbo. "Without your slippers! and in your shirt-tail! It's enough to kill you ! And why do you suspect me ? If that's how it is to be, good-bye to you, mon- sieur. After serving you ten years and paying out 246 THE POOR RELATIONS my own money for your affairs until my savings are all spent, so as not to worry that poor Monsieur Schmucke, who goes crying down the stairs like a baby, this is to be my reward! You go spying upon me. God has punished you! that's as it should be ! And I who have had such a strain to carry you in my arms that I risked injuring myself for the rest of my days Ah! Mon Dieu! And there's the door that I've left open " "Whom were you talking to? " "What ideas ! " cried the Cibot "Ah ! now, am I your slave ? Have I got to render an account to you? Don't you know if you worry me so I'll plant my foot down right there ! Then you can hire a nurse! " Pons, terrified at this threat, revealed, uncon- sciously, to the Cibot the lengths to which she could go with this sword of Damocles. "It is because I am so sick! " said he piteously. "Oh, good enough! " replied the Cibot roughly. She left Pons quite bewildered, a prey to remorse, admiring the clamorous devotion of his sick-nurse, reproaching himself, and not even feeling the great injury he had received in falling upon the flagging of the dining-room and aggravating the effects of his disease. Madame Cibot saw Schmucke coming up the stairway. "Come monsieur! I have bad news for you! Monsieur Pons has gone crazy! Fancy! he got up without any clothes on him and followed me, and he fell down right there at full length Ask him COUSIN PONS 247 why, and he don't know nothing about it He is very bad. I did nothing to provoke him to such violence, except to give him some ideas in talking to him about his early loves. Who knows anything about the men? They are all old libertines I was wrong to show him my arms, they made his eyes shine like carbuncles " Schmucke listened to Madame Cibot as if she were talking Hebrew. "I have given myself such a wrench that I have got a hurt that will last me till the end of my days," added the Cibot, making believe to suffer from severe pains, and resolving to make the most of an idea that had come to her by chance, from a slight fatigue she felt in her muscles. "I am so stupid! When I saw him there stretched out on the ground, I took him up in my arms and I carried him to his bed just like a child, I did! But now I feel such a strain! Ah! I am sick! I am going down into my own place, you take care of our sick man. I am going to send Cibot for Dr. Poulain for me! I'd rather die than see myself a cripple " She grasped the balustrade and rolled herself down the staircase, making a thousand contortions and uttering such plaintive moans that all the lodgers, much alarmed, came out from their apart- ments on the different landings. Schmucke supported the sufferer, shedding tears and explaining her great devotion. All the house, all the quarter, were soon acquainted with the sublime devotion of Madame Cibot who had given herself a mortal injury, they 248 THE POOR RELATIONS said, by lifting one of the Nut-crackers in her arms. Schmucke, when he got back to Pons, revealed to him the sad condition of their factotum and each of them looked at the other as if saying, "What will become of us without her? " Schmucke, observ- ing the change in Pons's appearance, produced by his escapade, did not dare to scold him. "Heng dat prig-a-prag. I vould radder haf eet purn dan loose mein frent," cried he, after Pons had told him of the cause of the accident "To tout Montame Zipod, who has her safings lent to us! Dat ees not rigd; put eet ees your seegness, I know " "Ah! what an illness! I am changed, I feel it," said Pons. "I don't wish to make you unhappy, my good Schmucke." "Scolt me," said Schmucke, "put leaf Montame Zipod alone." Doctor Poulain cured, in a few days, Madame Cibot of the injury she pretended to have suffered, and his reputation received in the quarter of the Marais an extraordinary lustre from this cure which seemed miraculous. In Pons's room, he attributed his success to the excellent constitution of the patient, who resumed her attendance upon her two gentlemen on the seventh day, to their great satis- faction. This event augmented a hundredfold the influence, the tyranny of the concierge, over the household of the two Nut-crackers, who, during this week, had been forced to run into debt, but whose debts had been paid by her. The Cibot profited by the circumstance to obtain, and with what ease ! from Schmucke a receipt for the two thousand francs which she declared she had lent to the two friends. "Ah! what a doctor that Monsieur Poulain is," she said to Pons. "He will save you, my dear mon- sieur, for he dragged me out of my coffin ! My poor Cibot thought I was dead! Well, now, Monsieur Poulain must have told you while I was lying on my bed, I only thought of you. 'My God/ I used to say, 'take me and let my dear Monsieur Pons live' " "Poor dear Madame Cibot, you came near hav- ing a fatal hurt through me ! " "Ah! if it hadn't been for Monsieur Poulain, I (249) 250 THE POOR RELATIONS should have been by this time in that chemise of pine-wood to which we are all coming. Well, as that old actor used to say, 'when you are at the bottom of the grave, you can turn a somerset !' We must all have some philosophy. How did you get along without me? " "Schmucke nursed me," replied the sick man, "but our poor purse and our pupils have suffered for it I don't know how he managed." "Pe calm, Bons," cried Schmucke, "ve haf here in de goot Zipod our panker " "Don't speak of that, my poor lamb! You are both of you my children," cried the Cibot "Our savings are all safe with you, come! you are as solid as the Bank of France. So long as we have a piece of bread you shall have half of it; 'taint worth talking about " "Boor Montame Zipod," said Schmucke, as he went away. Rons said nothing. "Would you believe it, my cherub," said the Cibot to the sick man, noticing that he was uneasy, "when death was hanging over me, for I saw the flat-nosed one very near me ! the thing that worried me most was the thought of you poor dears left alone to take care of yourselves and of leaving my poor Cibot without a Hard my savings are such a trifle that I wouldn't speak to you about them if it wasn't in connection with my death and with Cibot, who is an angel ! No, that good soul there, took care of me like a queen, and cried over me like a calf! COUSIN PONS 251 But I felt sure of you, word of an honest woman, I did. I said to him, 'never mind Cibot, my gentle- men will never leave you to starve* " Rons made no reply to this attack ad testamentum, and the concierge kept silent, waiting for a word. "I will recommend you to Schmucke," said the sick man, finally. "Ah, "cried she, "anything you do will be right! I can trust to you, to your good heart Don't speak of that ever, for you will make me ashamed, my good cherub; think only of getting well! You will live longer than the rest of us. " A profound anxiety took possession of the heart of Madame Cibot, she resolved to get some explana- tion from her gentleman on the subject of the legacy which he intended to leave her; and, as a prelimi- nary step, she went out to call on Doctor Poulain in his own home that evening, after Schmucke's din- ner, the latter taking his meals by the bedside of Pons since his friend had been sick. Doctor Poulain lived in the Rue d'Orleans. He occupied a small ground-floor apartment consisting of an ante-chamber, a salon, and two bed-rooms. An office which adjoined the ante-chamber and which communicated with one of the two bed-rooms, that of the doctor, had been converted into a study. The kitchen and servant's bed-room, and a small cellar belonging to this suite of rooms were situated in the wing of the house, a vast structure erected under the Empire, on the site of an old mansion, the garden of which still remained. This garden 252 THE POOR RELATIONS was divided among the three apartments on the ground-floor. The suite of rooms belonging to the doctor had not been changed for forty years. The painting, the papering, the decorations, were all of the Em- pire. Forty years of dirt, of smoke, had defaced the mirrors, the friezes, the patterns of the wall paper, the ceilings, and the paint This little abode in the depths of the Marais cost still one thousand francs a year. Madame Poulain, the doctor's mother, sixty-seven years of age, was spending her last years in the second bed-room. She worked for the breeches-makers. She sewed gaiters, leathern breeches, braces, waistbands, in fact on all the various parts of that garment now falling into disuse. Occupied with the care of her son's household and of her only servant, she never went out, and took the air in the little garden which was entered by a glass door leading from the salon. A widow for the last twenty years, she had, at the death of her husband, sold the business of breeches- making to her foreman, who agreed to give her enough work to enable her to earn about thirty sous a day. She had sacrificed everything to the educa- tion of her only son, resolved, at any price, to give him a situation superior to that of his father. Proud of her >Esculapius, believing in his success, she still continued to sacrifice everything to him, happy in taking care of him, in economizing for him, thinking only of his comfort, and loving him with intelligence, which is more than all mothers COUSIN PONS 253 know how to do. Thus, Madame Poulain, who remembered very well that she had been a mere work-woman did not wish to injure her son or expose him to ridicule, for the good woman used her s's very much as Madame Cibot used her negatives; she hid herself in her bed-room, of her own choice, whenever by chance some distinguished patients came to consult the doctor or when his fellow col- legians or colleagues of the hospital presented them- selves. Thus the doctor had never been obliged to blush for his mother, whom he venerated, and in whom the defects of education were well compen- sated by this sublime tenderness. The sale of the breeches-maker's business had produced about twenty thousand francs. The widow had placed them in the Grand-lime in 1820, and the eleven hundred francs of dividend which they brought her represented the whole of her means. So for many years the neighbors had been in the habit of seeing in the garden the doctor's linen and that of his mother, displayed on the clothes-lines. Madame Poulain and her servant washed everything at home as a matter of economy. This domestic detail had injured the doctor a good deal, people were unable to recognize his talent when they saw him so poor. The eleven hundred francs paid the rent The work of Madame Poulain, a good, fat, little, old woman, had during the early days, sufficed for all the expenses of the humble household. After twelve years of persistence in this stony path, the doctor had come to earn about three thousand francs 254 THE POOR RELATIONS a year, so that Madame Poulain could now dispose of about five thousand francs annually. This was, for those who know Paris, just enough for the strict necessities of life. The salon where the patients waited was meanly furnished with that well-known vulgar mahogany sofa, covered with yellow Utrecht velvet, with its pattern of flowers, four arm-chairs, and six com- mon chairs, a pier-table, and a tea-table, all of them inherited from the old breeches-maker and all of his particular choice. The clock, always kept under a glass case, between two Egyptian cande- labra, was in the shape of a lyre. It was a ques- tion by what means the curtains which hung at the windows could possibly have been preserved so long, for they were of yellow calico with the pattern of red roses from the manufactory of Jouy. Ober- kampf had received the compliments of the Emperor for these atrocious products of the cotton industry in the year 1809. The doctor's study being fur- nished in this style, the furniture of the paternal bed-chamber had supplied the means. The aspect of the room was dismal, cold, and poverty-stricken. What patient could possibly believe in the skill of a doctor who, without renown, found himself without any furniture in a time when the art of advertising is all-powerful, and when the candelabra of the Place de la Concorde are gilded to console the poor man by persuading him that he is a rich citizen ? The ante-chamber served as a dining-room. The servant worked there when she was not employed COUSIN PONS 255 in the kitchen or when she was not in the company of the doctor's mother. The first glance on enter- ing revealed the decent poverty which reigned in this melancholy apartment, left empty during half the day, as the eye rested on the little curtains of red muslin covering a solitary window looking out upon the court The cupboard evidently held scraps of mouldy pates, chipped plates, endless corks, napkins of a week's use in short all the necessary ignominies of the humbler Parisian household which, from there, could go nowhere but into the bag of the rag-picker. Thus, in these days, when the five-franc piece is stamped on all minds, and rolls under all tongues, the doctor, though thirty years of age and possessed of a mother without rela- tives, remained a bachelor. In the course of ten years he had never encountered the very smallest pretext for a romance in the families to which his profession gave him access, for he cured only those in a sphere in which the conditions resembled his own; he only saw households similar to his own, those of the minor employees or of small manufac- turers. His richest clients were the butchers, bakers, and the larger retail shopkeepers of the quarter, people who usually attributed their cure to nature, in order to be able to pay the doctor only forty sous a visit, seeing that he came on foot In the medical profession, a cabriolet is of more con- sequence than knowledge. A life of commonplace events, without oppor- tunities, ends by reacting upon even the most 256 THE POOR RELATIONS (adventurous mind. The man conforms to his fate, , he accepts the commonness of his life. So Doctor -' Poulain, after ten years' practice, continued his toil of Sisyphus without the sense of despair which made his first years so bitter. Nevertheless, he cherished a dream, for all the inhabitants of Paris have their visions. Remonencq had one, Madame Cibot had hers. Doctor Poulain hoped to be called in by some rich and influential invalid; then to obtain through the influence of this invalid, whom he should infallibly cure, an appointment as doctor- in-chief to some hospital, or as doctor in the prison, or to the theatres of the boulevard, or in some gov- ernment office. He had already obtained by such means his place as physician to the Maine. Called in by Madame Cibot, he had attended and cured M. Pillerault, the proprietor of the house in which the Cibots were concierges. M. Pillerault, maternal great-uncle to Madame la Comtesse Popinot, the minister's wife, having taken an interest in this young man, whose secret poverty had been fath- omed by him in a visit of acknowledgment, obtained from his great-nephew, the minister, who venerated him, this official situation which the doctor had occupied for five years and of which the meagre emoluments had come just in time to keep him from carrying out a desperate determination to emi- grate. To leave France is for a Frenchman a most melancholy proceeding. Doctor Poulain hastened to thank the Comte Popinot; but the physician to this statesman proving to be the illustrious Bianchon, the COUSIN PONS 257 aspirant comprehended that he could never hope to obtain a footing in that house. The poor doctor, after having flattered himself that he had obtained the protection of an influential statesman, of one of the twelve or fifteen cards which a powerful hand has been shuffling for the last sixteen years on the green baize of the council-board, found himself plunged back into the Marais, where he splashed about among the small bourgeois, and where he had charge of recording their deaths, at a salary of twelve hundred francs a year. Doctor Poulain, who had been a sufficiently dis- tinguished student and who had now become a prudent practitioner, did not lack experience. More- over, his deaths caused no scandal and he was able to study all diseases in anima vili. Judge with what bitterness he was nourished! So that the expression of his face, already long and melancholy, was sometimes frightful. Set, in a yellow parch- ment, eyes with the gleam of Tartuffe and the sharpness of Alceste ; then picture to yourself the deportment, the attitude, the look of this man who, knowing himself to be just as skilful a doctor as the illustrious Bianchon, felt himself held down in an obscure sphere by a hand of iron ! Doctor Pou- lain could not help comparing his receipts of ten francs, in his fortunate days, with those of Bian- chon, which amounted to five or six hundred ! Does not this enable us to conceive of the hatreds of democracy ? This man of ambition, moreover, thus thrown back on himself, had no cause for self- 17 258 THE POOR RELATIONS reproach. He had already wooed fortune by invent- ing certain purgative pills, like those of Morrison. He had entrusted this enterprise to a comrade at the hospital, a student who had become a druggist; but the druggist, amorous of a dancer at the Ambigu- Comique, ended in bankruptcy, and the patent for the purgative pills having been taken out in his name, this immense discovery enriched his suc- cessor. The bankrupt departed for Mexico, the land of gold, carrying with him one thousand francs of poor Poulain's savings, who, by way of consola- tion, was treated as a usurer by the dancer, from whom he attempted to recover his money. Since his good fortune in the care of old Pillerault, not one rich client had presented himself. Poulain scoured all the Marais on foot like a lean cat, and for his twenty visits obtained from two to forty sous. The client who paid well was for him that phantasmal bird known in all sublunary realms as the "white crow." The young lawyer without cases, the young doc- tor without patients, are the two greatest expres- sions of decent despair, peculiar to the city of Paris, that despair chill, silent, clothed in a black coat and trousers, whose whitening seams recall the tin roofs of the garrets in a waistcoat of too shiny satin, a hat sacredly cared for, old gloves, and a cotton shirt. It is a poem of sadness, sombre as are the secrets of the Conciergerie. Other forms of pov- erty, those of the poet, of the artist, of the actor, of the musician, are cheered by the gaiety natural to COUSIN PONS 259 the arts, by the careless ease of Bohemia into which one enters at first, and which leads to the Thebaides of genius. But these two black coats which go afoot, worn by the two professions for whom all things are like an open wound, to whom humanity shows only its shameful aspects; these two men have in the dreary flattening out of their opening career, sinister and aggressive expressions, in which hatred and ambition concentrated, flame forth in glances like those of the first gleams of a smoldering fire. When two college friends meet, after a separation of twenty years, the rich man avoids his poor comrade, he does not recognize him, he is terrified at the gulf which fate has opened between them. The one has traversed life on the mettlesome steeds of fortune or on the golden clouds of success ; the other has plodded along the subter- ranean 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 his waistcoat! It is now easy to see why Doctor Poulain had been so willing to play his part in the comedy of Madame Cibot's illness. All his covetousness, all his ambitions, may be imagined. Not finding the slightest sign of injury in any of the concierge's organs, admiring the regularity of her pulse, the perfect ease of all her movements, and hearing her utter distressing cries, he understood that she had some good reason for pretending to be at death's door. The rapid cure of this serious pretended malady being likely to make him talked about in the arrondisse- ment, he exaggerated the pretended rupture of the concierge, and he talked of taking it in time and reduc- ing it Finally, he subjected the concierge to pre- tended remedies, to a fictitious operation, which were crowned with complete success. He hunted up in the arsenal of the extraordinary cures of Desplein a peculiar case; he applied it to Madame Cibot, modestly attributing the cure to the great surgeon, and gave himself out for his imitator. Such are the tricks of men who are endeavoring to rise in Paris. Everything serves them for a ladder with which to mount on a scene; but as everything wears out, even the rungs of a ladder, the beginners in each profession no longer know of what wood to make these steps for themselves. Sometimes the Parisian turns rebellious. Weary of building pedestals, he (261) 262 THE POOR RELATIONS sulks, like a spoiled child, and will have no more idols; or, to speak more accurately, men of talent are sometimes lacking for this infatuation. The vein from which is extracted the ore of genius has its interruptions; the Parisian turns recalcitrant and will not forever gild or adore the mediocrities. Madame Cibot entered with her accustomed brusqueness, and surprised the doctor at table with his old mother, eating a salad of lamb's lettuce, the cheapest of all salads, having for dessert only a thin wedge of Brie cheese between a plate sparsely filled with the dried fruit called "the four mendi- cants," figs, nuts, almonds, and raisins, in which might be seen many stalks of raisins, and a plate of miserable, shrunken apples. "You can stay, mother," said the doctor, retain- ing Madame Poulain by the arm. "This is Madame Cibot, of whom I have spoken so often." "My respects, madame, my duties to you, mon- sieur," said the Cibot, accepting the chair which the doctor presented to her. "Oh, and that is your mother ? She is very happy to have a son who has so much talent; for he is my savior, madame, he pulled me out of the grave." The widow Poulain found Madame Cibot charm- ing, when she heard her thus sounding the praises of her son. "It is to say to you, my dear Monsieur Poulain, between ourselves, that poor Monsieur Pons is very sick and that 1 have something to say to you relating to him" COUSIN PONS 263 "Let us go into the salon," said Doctor Poulain, indicating the servant to Madame Cibot by a sig- nificant gesture. In the salon, the Cibot explained at length her position with the two Nut-crackers, she repeated the story of her loan to them, embellishing it suffi- ciently, and recounted the immense services which she had rendered during the last ten years to MM. Rons and Schmucke. To hear her, you would have thought that these two old men would be no longer in existence had it not been for her maternal cares. In short, she posed as an angel, and uttered so many and so various lies, duly sprinkled with tears, that she ended by melting the old Madame Poulain. "You understand, my dear monsieur," she said finishing, "that it would be well to know just what to expect of that which Monsieur Pons is going to do for me in case he should die, which is what I hope very much will not happen, for the taking care of these two innocents, do you see, madame, that is my life; but if one of them should leave me I would look out for the other. As for me, nature con- structed me to be the rival of maternity. Without someone in whom I can interest myself, of whom I can make a baby, I do not know what would become of me. So, if Monsieur Poulain will do it, he can render me a service, which I shall not know how to be thankful enough for, that would be to speak to Mon- sieur Pons about me. Mon Dieu ! A thousand francs of annuity, is that too much, I ask you, yourself ? It is just so much gained for Monsieur Schmucke. For 264 THE POOR RELATIONS that matter, our dear sick man has said to me that he would commend me to that poor German, who will then be, according to his ideas, his heir. But what kind of a man is it who does not know how to sew two ideas together in French, and he moreover is quite capable of taking himself over to Germany, so much he will be in despair over the death of his friend. " "My dear Mame Cibot, " replied the doctor, becom- ing serious. " These kinds of affairs do not concern the physician, and the exercise of my profession would be forbidden to me if it were known that I had interfered in the testamentary dispositions of one of my patients. The law does not permit a doc- tor to accept a legacy from one of his patients " "What a beast of a law! But what is it that would hinder me from sharing my legacy with you?" responded promptly the Cibot "I will go further still," said the doctor. "My conscience as a physician forbids me to speak to M. Pons of his death. In the first place, he is not in a sufficiently dangerous condition for that; then, this statement on my part might cause him a shock, which might do him real injury and so render his malady mortal." "But I don't mince matters very much," cried Madame Cibot, "in telling him to put his affairs in order, and that he cannot be much worse than he is He is used to that! You need not fear." "Say to me no more about it, my dear Madame Cibot! These things are not at all in the domain of the doctor. They concern only the notaries." COUSIN PONS 265 "But, my dear Monsieur Poulain, if M. Pons should ask of you of his own accord how he is, and if he would do well to take his precautions, then would you refuse to say to him that it is an excel- lent help toward recovering the health to have everything arranged. Then you could slip in a little word for me." "Ah! should he speak to me about making his will, I would not dissuade him in any way," said Doctor Poulain. "All right, that is agreed," cried Madame Cibot "I have come to thank you for your pains," she added, and slipping into the doctor's hand a little paper which contained three pieces of gold; "that is all that I can do at present Ah ! if I were only rich you would be so too, my dear M. Poulain, you are the image of the good God on earth. You have there, madame, for a son an angel ! " The Cibot rose, Madame Poulain saluted her with amiability and the doctor reconducted her out to the landing. There, this frightful Lady Macbeth of the streets was suddenly illuminated by an infernal light; she comprehended that the doctor could be made her accomplice, since he had accepted an honorarium for the pretended malady. "But how, my dear M. Poulain," said she to him, "after having pulled me out of that affair of my accident, can you refuse to save me from pov- erty by speaking only a few words? " The doctor felt that he had allowed the devil to take him by a lock of his head, and that this 266 THE POOR RELATIONS lock was tightly rolled around the pitiless claw of the fiery hand. Frightened at the idea of losing his honesty for so small a thing, he re- plied to this diabolical idea by another not less diabolical. "Listen, my dear Madame Cibot," said he, turn- ing her back, and leading her into his study. "I am going to pay you the debt of gratitude which I contracted toward you, to whom 1 owe my position in the Mairie. " "We will share it equally," said she, quickly "What! " asked the doctor. "The inheritance," replied the concierge. "You do not know me," returned the doctor, assuming the pose of Valerius Publicola. "Do not speak any more of that I have for a college com- rade, a young man, very intelligent, and we are all the more closely united that we have had the same fortunes in life. While I was studying medicine, he was following law; while I was still in the col- lege, he was spreading outside in the office of an attorney Maitre Couture. The son of a shoemaker, as 1 am the son of a breeches-maker, he has not found very lively sympathies around him, but he has none the more found capital ; for, after all, capital is not obtained by sympathy. He has not been able to carry on his profession excepting in the provinces, at Mantes. Now, the people in the provinces comprehend so poorly the Paris intelligence, that they have put a thousand injuries upon my friend." COUSIN PONS 267 "The beasts! " cried the Cibot. "Yes," replied the doctor, "for they have banded together against him so effectively that he has been forced to sell out his practice under circum- stances which have made it appear that he had committed a wrong; the Procureur-du-Roi interfered in the case ; this magistrate was a native of the country, and he took sides with his fellow provin- cials. This poor fellow, still more seedy and more threadbare than I am, and lives just as I do, his name is Fraisier, has taken refuge in our arrondissement, and is reduced to pleading before the justice of the peace and the ordinary tribunals of police. He lives near here, Rue de la Perle. Go to Number 9, you will mount three flights and on the landing you will see painted in gold letters: CABINET DE M. FRAISIER on a little square of red morocco. Fraisier takes special charge of the diffi- cult affairs of MM. the concierges, of the work- people, and of all the poor in our arrondissement, at moderate prices. He is an honest man, for I do not need to say to you, that, with his opportunities, if he were a knave he would roll in his carriage. I will see my friend Fraisier this evening. Go to see him to-morrow early ; he knows M. Louchard, Garde de Commerce; M. Tabareau, bailiff of the justice of the peace; M. Vitel, the juge-de-paix , and M. Trog- non, notary; he is already connected with the most important men of affairs of the quarter. If he takes charge of your interests, if you can get M. Rons to take him for counsel, you will have in him, do you 268 THE POOR RELATIONS see, another yourself. Only, do not go to him as to me, to propose some compromise which would affect his honor ; but he has intelligence, you will come to an understanding. Then, when it comes to recompensing his services, I will be your inter- mediary." Madame Cibot looked at the doctor malignantly. "Is he not the man of law," said she, "who pulled the haberdasher of the Rue Vieille-du-Temple, Madame Florimond, out of that bad hole in which she was, regarding the inheritance of her good friend?" "It is the same man," said the doctor. "Was it not horrible," cried the Cibot, "that after having obtained for her two thousand francs of income, she refused to him her hand which he asked, and that she considered herself quit with him, they say, by giving him twelve shirts of Holland linen, twenty-four handkerchiefs, in fact, a whole trousseau! " "My dear Madame Cibot," said the doctor, "the trousseau was worth one thousand francs and Fraisier, who was then just beginning in the quar- ter, had plenty of need of it She had moreover, paid the amount of his expenses without saying anything about it That affair there has brought others to Fraisier, he is now very much occupied ; but, in my class, our customers are worth " "There are none but the just who suffer here," replied the concierge. "Well, good-bye and thank you, my dear M. Poulain." Here commences the drama, or if you prefer, the terrible comedy, of the death of a celibate, deliv- ered, through the force of circumstances, to the rapacity of avaricious natures grouped around his bed, and which in this case had for allies, the keenest of passions, that of picture-mania; the avarice of the Sieur Fraisier, who if seen in his cavern would make you shudder, and the thirst of an Auvergnat, capable of anything, even of a crime, in order to procure capital for himself. This com- edy, to which this part of the history serves in some sort as the curtain-raiser, has moreover for actors all the persons who up to the present time have appeared upon the scene. The abasement of words is one of those curios- ities in our manners which to be justly explained would require volumes. To write to an attorney, addressing him as Homme de lot, man of law, would be to offend him as much as you would offend a wholesale merchant of colonial produce by address- ing him thus in your letter, "Monsieur So and So, Grocer." A sufficiently large number of peo- ple of the world, who should know, since in that lies all their knowledge, these delicate distinctions of the savoir-vivre, are still ignorant that the qualifica- tion of "man of letters" is the greatest insult that you can offer an author. The word Monsieur is the (269) 2/0 THE POOR RELATIONS greatest example of the life and death of words. Monsieur means Monseigneur. This title, formerly so considerable, now reserved for kings by the transformation of Sieur into Sire, is given now to everybody, and nevertheless Messire, which is no other than the double of the word Monsieur, and its equivalent, stirs up articles in the republican journals when by chance it appears in a funeral notice. Magistrates, councilors, jurisconsults, judges, advocates, ministerial officers, attorneys, bailiffs, counsels, procurators, agents and counsel for the de- fence, are titles under which are known those who administer justice or who are in its service. The two lower rounds of this ladder are the "practi- tioner" and the "man of law." The practitioner, commonly known as a recors, bailiff's follower, is an officer of the law by chance, his office is to assure the execution of judgments; that is in civil affairs, to be a second-hand executioner. As to the man of law, he is the scapegoat peculiar to the profession. He is to justice what the "man of letters" is to literature. In all the professions in France the competition which devours them has found terms of disparagement Each condition has its peculiar by-word. The contempt which accents the words "man of letters" and "man of law" stops at the plural. You can say very well, without offending anyone, gens de lettres and gens de loi. But at Paris each profession has its tail-end, certain indi- viduals who exercise the trade on a level with the business of the streets, with the common people. COUSIN PONS 2/1 Thus the man of law, the small business agent, exists still in certain quarters, as there is still found at the Halle the small lender at exorbitant interest who is to a great banker that which M. Fraisier was to the Company of Advocates. What is curious is that the lower classes are afraid of the ministerial officers, as they are of fashionable res- taurants. They go to these pettifoggers just as they go to drink in the taverns. Everything on the same level is the general lot of the different social spheres. It is only superior natures which live to mount the heights, which do not suffer in finding themselves in the presence of their superiors, which make their own place, like Beaumarchais dropping the watch of the great lord who wished to humiliate him; but such parvenus, especially those who know how to make their swaddling-clothes dis- appear, are very great exceptions to the rule. The day after, at six o'clock in the morning, Madame Cibot examined in the Rue de la Perle, the house in which dwelt her future counselor, the Sieur Fraisier, man of law. It was one of those old houses formerly inhabited by the small bourgeoisie. You entered it by an alley. The ground floor, partly occupied by the porter's lodge and partly by the shop of a cabinet-maker whose workrooms and storerooms encumbered a little interior court, was divided by the alley and by the casing of the stair- way, devoured by saltpetre and dampness. This house seemed full of leprosy. Madame Cibot went straight to the lodge. She 2/2 THE POOR RELATIONS found there one of Cibot's confreres, a shoemaker, his wife and two young children, lodged in a space of about ten feet square lit from the little court A most cordial acquaintance was immediately estab- lished between the two women as soon as the Cibot had declared her profession, given her name and spoken of her house in the Rue de Normandie. After a quarter of an hour employed in gossip, and during which the concierge of M. Fraisier prepared the breakfast of the shoemaker and the two children, Madame Cibot brought the conversation around to the tenants and spoke of the man of law. "I have come to consult him," said she, "about some business; one of his friends, Doctor Poulain, has recommended me to him. Do you know Doctor Poulain ?" "I should say so," said the concierge of the Rue de la Perle. "He saved my baby which had the croup." "He saved me also me, madame what kind of a man is he, this M. Fraisier?" "He is a man, my dear lady," replied the con- cierge's wife, "from whom you get with great diffi- culty, the money for carrying his letters, at the end of the month." This answer sufficed to the intelligent Cibot "One can be poor and honest," she observed. "I should hope so," replied Fraisier's concierge. "We do not roll on either gold or silver, not even on sous, but we have not a Hard that doesn't belong to us." COUSIN PONS 273 The Cibot recognized herself in this language. "Well, my dear," she replied, "one can trust him, can you not?" "Ah! when Monsieur Fraisier wishes good to some one, I have heard it said by Madame Flori- mond that he has not his equal." "And why did she not marry him?" demanded quickly the Cibot, "since it is to him she owes her fortune. That would be something for a little haberdasher, who had been kept by an old man, to become the wife of an advocate. " "Why?" said the concierge, drawing Madame Cibot into the alley. "You are going up to see him, are you not, madame ? Very well, when you are in his office, you will know why." The stairway, lit from the little court by win- dows with sliding shutters, announced that, with the exception of the owner and the Sieur Fraisier, the other tenants followed mechanical professions. The muddy steps carried the signs of each trade in presenting to the view brass shavings, broken but- tons, scraps of gauze, bits of spartum for matting, etc. The apprentices from the upper stories had designed obscene caricatures on the walls. The last words of the concierge in exciting the curiosity of Madame Cibot had naturally decided her to con- sult Doctor Poulain's friend, but in resolving to employ him in her affairs only after having come to a conclusion about him. "I ask myself often how Madame Sauvage can re- main in his service," said as a sort of commentary 18 274 THE POOR RELATIONS the concierge who followed Madame Cibot "I go with you, madame, because I am carrying up the milk and the newspaper to my proprietor." Arrived at the second floor over the entresol the Cibot found herself before a door of the most vil- lainous character. The painting, of a bad red, was covered, over a space of twenty centimetres, with that black layer which is left by the contact of many hands, after a certain time, and which the architects endeavor to combat in elegant apartments by the application of glass panels over and under the locks. The wicket of this door, blocked by scoria of metal like that which the restaurant keepers use to give a look of age to their wine-bottles, served only to give it still more its right to be called the gate of a prison, and was moreover in accord with its clover-leaf shaped iron-work, with its form- idable hinges and great nail-heads. Some miser, or some scribbler at odds with the whole world, might have invented this apparatus. The lead pipe, through which flowed the waste waters of the household, added its quota to the smells of the stairway, of which the ceiling showed everywhere arabesques designed with the smoke of candles, and what arabesques ! The cord of the door, at the end of which hung a dirty olive shaped knob, sounded a little bell whose feeble tone revealed a crack in the metal. It seemed exactly in harmony with the whole of this hideous picture. The Cibot heard the sound of a heavy step and the asthmatic respiration of a powerful woman, and Madame Sauvage showed COUSIN PONS 275 herself. She was one of those old women designed by Adrien Brauwer in his Witches Departing for the Sabbat, a woman five feet six inches in height, with a soldier-like visage much more bearded than that of the Cibot, of an unwholesome grossness, clothed in a hideous flowered gown of printed cotton goods, with a handkerchief around her head, still using curling papers made of the printed writs which her master received gratuitously, and carrying in her ears a sort of carriage-wheels in gold. This female cerberus held in her hand a tin skillet, much in- "Hented, from which the dripping milk diffused one smell the more in the stairway despite its nauseat- ing sourness. "What is it that you wish for your service, MedZme?" asked Mme. Sauvage. And, with a menacing air she threw on the Cibot, whom she found, without doubt, too well dressed, a look all the more murderous as her eyes were naturally bloodshot. " I have come to see Monsieur Fraisier from his friend, Dr. Poulain." " Come in, MedZme," replied the Sauvage with an air suddenly becoming very amiable, and which proved that she had been notified of this morning visit. And, after having made a theatrical reverence, this half-male servant of the Sieur Fraisier opened the door of the office, which looked out on the street, and in which was the former advocate of Mantes. This office resembled exactly those little stalls of 276 THE POOR RELATIONS the under-sheriffs of the third class, in which the pigeon-holes are in blackened wood, where the bundles of papers are all so old that they have beards, in true clerkly fashion, where the red tapes hang in lamentable disorder, where the paper boxes smell of the gambols of mice, where the floor is gray with dust and the ceiling yellow with smoke. The mirror of the chimney was clouded, the cast-iron andirons supported an economical log, the clock in modern marquetry was worth sixty francs, having been purchased at some sale enforced by the law, and the candelabra which accompanied it were of zinc, but they affected rococo shapes with very ill success, and the painting, scaled off in many parts, revealed the metal underneath. M. Fraisier, a little, dry and unwholesome-looking man, with a red face _ on which the pimples betrayed the very bad state of his blood, and who, moreover, incessantly scratched his right arm, whose wig, shoved far back on his head, revealed a cranium of the color of brick, and of a sinister expression, rose from a cane- $ seated chair where he had been sitting on a circular cushion of green morocco. He assumed an agree- able air and a piping voice, saying, in pushing for- ward a chair : "Madame Cibot, I suppose? " "Yes, monsieur," replied the concierge, who lost her natural assurance. Madame Cibot was frightened by this voice which resembled a good deal that of the bell, and also by a glance still more lividly green than the greenish COUSIN PONS 277 eyes of her future counsel. The office smelt so strongly of this Fraisier that you could readily imagine that the air in it was pestilential. The Cibot understood then why Madame Florimond had not become Madame Fraisier. "Poulain has spoken to me of you, my dear lady, said the man of law in that false voice which is commonly known as a "little voice," but which remains always sharp and clear, like country wine. Then this agent of affairs endeavored to drape himself by bringing together over his pointed knees, covered with a species of thin woolen stuff worn threadbare, the two flaps of an old dressing-gown of printed calico in which the wadding took the liberty of issuing through several rents, but the weight of this wadding pulled down the flaps and discovered the close-fitting jacket of flannel, grown black with use. After having tightened with a conceited air the cord of this refractory dressing-gown so as to show his slender waist, Fraisier brought together with the tongs two sticks in the fireplace which had long been separated, like two brothers turned enemies. Then with a sudden thought he straight- ened himself up. "Madame Sauvage," he cried. "Well." "I am not at home to anyone." "Eh! Parbleur, we know that," replied the virago in a masterful voice. "It is my old nurse," said the man of law with a confused air to the Cibot. "She has still plenty of ugliness" laid, lait, milk, replied the former heroine of the Halles. Fraisier laughed at the pun, and shot the bolt of the door to make sure that his housekeeper should not come to interrupt the Cibot's confidences. (279) 280 THE POOR RELATIONS "Well, madame, explain to me your affair, said he, seating himself and still endeavoring to drape himself in his dressing-gown. "A person who is recommended to me by the only friend whom I have in the world can count on me yes absolutely! " Madame Cibot talked during a half-hour without the man of law permitting himself the least inter- ruption ; he had the curious air of a young soldier who listens to "one of the old ones." This silence and the submission of Fraisier, the attention which he appeared to pay to this cascade of words, of which we have seen specimens in the scenes between the Cibot and poor Rons, caused the suspicious con- cierge to forget some of those forebodings which the sight of so many ignoble details had inspired in her. When the Cibot finally stopped and was wait- ing for advice, the little man of law, whose greenish eyes with black points had not ceased to study his future client, was taken with the kind of cough called" the graveyard," and he had recourse to an earthenware bowl half-full of some herb tea, which he emptied. "Were it not for Poulain, I would be already dead," replied he to the maternal regards which the concierge bestowed upon him, "but he will give me back my health he says." He seemed to have lost the memory of the con- fidences of his client, who began to think of leaving such a perishing counselor. "Madame, in cases of inheritance, before going into them it is necessary to know two things," COUSIN PONS 28l resumed the former attorney of Mantes, becoming grave. "In the first place, if the property is worth the trouble taken about it, and, secondly, who are the heirs; for if the inheritance is the booty, the heirs are the enemies." The Cibot spoke of Remonencq and filie Magus, and said that the two shrewd accomplices estimated the collection of pictures at six hundred thousand francs. "Will they take it at that price?" demanded the former attorney of Mantes; "for, do you see madame, men of business do not believe in pictures. A picture, that is forty sous worth of canvas, or one hundred thousand francs of painting! Now, the paintings of that value are all well-known, and what errors are made in all these valuations, even those the most celebrated ! A great financier, whose gallery was valued and greatly visited, and all en- graved, actually engraved! was reputed to have expended millions upon it He died, for everybody dies; very well, his 'authentic' pictures did not produce more than two hundred thousand francs ! It will be necessary to bring me these gentlemen. Let us go on to the heirs." And Fraisier resumed his listening attitude. When he heard the name of the President Camusot he executed a shaking of the head accompanied by a grimace which made the Cibot excessively attentive; she endeavored to read this forehead, this atrocious physiognomy, and she found only an inscrutable expression. "Yes, my dear monsieur," repeated the Cibot, 282 THE POOR RELATIONS "my Monsieur Pons is the own cousin of the Presi- dent Camusot de Marville, he goes over the rela- tionship to me ten times a day. The first wife of M. Camusot, the silk merchant " "Who is going to be created peer of France " "Was a Demoiselle Pons, first-cousin of Monsieur Pons." "They are cousins born of first-cousins." "They are no longer anything to each other, they have quarrelled." M. Camusot de Marville had been during five years President of the Tribunal of Mantes before coming to Paris. Not only did he leave there cer- tain souvenirs, but he had also preserved relations thereby, for his successor, the judge with whom he had been most intimate during his sojourn there, presided still over the tribunal, and consequently knew Fraisier thoroughly. "Do you know, madame," said he, when the Cibot had finally arrested the motion of the red sluice-gates of her torrential mouth, "do you know that you would have for a capital enemy a man who can send people to the gallows? " The concierge sprang from her chair with a bound like that of the doll of that plaything called "a jack-in-the-box." "Calm yourself, my dear lady," resumed Fraisier. "Nothing is more conceivable than that you should be ignorant of the power of the President of the Chamber of Indictments of the Cour Royale of Paris, but you should have known that Monsieur COUSIN PONS 283 Pons had a direct, legal heir. Monsieur le Presi- dent de Marville is the sole and only heir of your sick man, but he is collateral in the third degree; therefore, according to the law, Monsieur Pons can do what he will with his property. You are also ignorant of the fact that the daughter of Monsieur le President was married, within the last six weeks at the least, to the eldest son of Monsieur le Comte Popinot, peer of France, formerly Minister of Agri- culture and Commerce, one of the most influential men in modern political affairs. This alliance ren- ders the president still more redoubtable than he is as sovereign of the Court of Assizes." The Cibot shuddered again at these words. "Yes, it is he who would send you there, " resumed Fraisier. "Ah! my dear lady, you do not know what the red robe is ! It is already quite enough to have the simple black robe against one! If you see me here, ruined, bald, almost dead, very well ! It is for having run against, without knowing it, a simple little provincial Procureur-de-roi! I was forced to sell my practice at the lowest price, and very happy to be able to decamp with the loss of all my fortune. If I had tried to resist, I would not have been able to retain my profession of attorney. A fact of which you are also ignorant is, that it is not only a question of the President Camusot, that would be nothing; but there is, do you see, a woman ! And if you should find yourself face to face with this woman you would tremble as if you were on the first step of the gallows, the hair 284 THE POOR RELATIONS would stand on end. The president's wife is vindictive enough to spend ten years in enticing you into a trap in which you would perish ! She uses her husband just as a child spins its top. She has in her life caused the suicide in the Conciergerie of a charming young man; she turned white as snow a count who found himself under an accusa- tion of forgery. She almost caused the outlawry of one of the greatest seigneurs in the Court of Charles X. Finally she overthrew the Procureur- General, Monsieur de Granville." "Who lives Rue Vieille-du-Temple, at the corner of Rue Saint-Francois? " said the Cibot "The same man. It is said that she wishes to make her husband Minister of Justice, and I am not sure that she will not arrive at her object If she took it into her head to send both of us to the Court of Assizes and to the galleys, I, who am as innocent as an unborn babe, I would take a passport and I would go to the United States, so well do I know the law. Now, my dear Madame Cibot, to be able to marry her only daughter to the young Vicomte Popinot, who will be, they say, the heir of your proprietor, Monsieur Pillerault, the president's wife has stripped herself of all her fortune, so much so that at this moment the president and his wife are reduced to live on the salary of the presidency. And you believe, my dear lady, that in these circumstances, Madame la Presi- dente would neglect the inheritance of your Mon- sieur Pons? Why, I would rather face the COUSIN PONS 285 mitrailleuses than know that I have such a woman against me. " "But," said the Cibot, "they have quarrelled " "What does that matter?" said Fraisier. "The more reason! To kill a relation of whom you complain, that is something; but to inherit from him, that is a pleasure! " "But the good man holds his heirs in horror; he repeated to me that these persons, I remember the names, Monsieur Cardot, Monsieur Berthier, etc., had crushed him like an egg under a tumbrel." "Do you wish to be smashed also? " "Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu!" cried the concierge. "Ah! Mame Fontaine was right when she said that I should encounter obstacles ; but she said that I would succeed." "Listen, my dear Madame Cibot That you may draw out of this affair some thirty thousand francs, that is possible; but as to the inheritance, it is not worth while to think about it We talked about you and your affair, Doctor Poulain and I, yester- day evening." Here Madame Cibot again made a bound on her seat "What is the matter with you?" "But if you were acquainted with my affair, why have you let me gabble here like a magpie?" "Madame Cibot, I was acquainted with your affair, but I knew nothing at all of Madame Cibot! So many clients, so many characters. " Upon which Madame Cibot threw upon her future 286 THE POOR RELATIONS counselor a singular glance, in which all her sus- picions flamed out, and Fraisier intercepted the glance. "I resume," said Fraisier. "Then, our friend Poulain has been brought by you into connection with the old Monsieur Pillerault, the great-uncle of Madame la Comtesse Popinot, and that is one of your claims to my devotion. Poulain goes to see your proprietor, note this ! every two weeks, and he has learned all these details from him. This old merchant was present at the marriage of his great-great-nephew for he is an uncle to inherit from, he has some fifteen thousand francs of in- come; and for the last twenty-five years he has lived like a monk; he expends scarcely one thous- and crowns a year, and he has related all the affair of the marriage to Poulain. It appears that this row has been caused entirely by your good man, the musician, who wished to dishonor, out of re- venge, the family of the president It is always well to see both sides of the shield. Your sick man says he is innocent, but all the world regards him as a monster." "It would not astonish me if he was one! " cried the Cibot "Just imagine, here are ten years past in which I have given him of my best, he knows it, he has my savings, and he will not put me into his will. No, monsieur, he will not, he is headstrong, he is a real mule Here are ten days that I have spoken to him about it, the old villain does not budge any more than if he were a milestone. He COUSIN PONS 287 does not open his mouth, he looks at me in a way All that he says is that he will recommend me to Monsieur Schmucke." "He intends, then, to make a will in favor of this Schmucke?" "He will give him everything." "Listen, my dear Madame Cibot, it is necessary, in order that I may arrive at a definite opinion and be able to conceive a plan, that I should know Monsieur Schmucke, that I should see the objects which compose the property, that I should have a con- ference with this Jew of whom you spoke to me ; and then, let me direct you." "We will see, my good Monsieur Fraisier." "How, we will see!" said Fraisier, darting a viperous glance at the Cibot and speaking in his natural voice. Ah! now, am I, or am I not, your counsel ? Let us thoroughly understand each other. " The Cibot felt herself discovered, she had a chill in her back. "You have all my confidence," she returned, see- ing herself at the mercy of a tiger. "We attorneys are accustomed to being betrayed by our clients. Let us examine well your position ; it is admirable. If you follow my counsels step by step you will have, I guarantee to you, from thirty to forty thousand francs of this inheritance. But this fine medal has a reverse. Suppose the president's wife learns that the property of Monsieur Rons is worth a million, and that you wish to get something out of it, for there are always some 288 THE POOR RELATIONS people who would take upon themselves to repeat these things! " said he in a parenthesis. This parenthesis, opened and closed by two pauses, made the Cibot shiver. It occurred to her immediately that Fraisier would charge himself with this denunciation. "My dear client, in ten minutes they would obtain from the good man Pillerault your dismissal from the lodge, and you would be given two hours in which to move out " "What difference would that make to me," said the Cibot, rising on her feet like a Bellona, "I would remain in the household of these gentlemen as their confidential housekeeper." "And, seeing that, they would fix up a trap for you, and you would wake up one fine morning in a jail, you and your husband, under a capital accusa- tion." "I!" cried the Cibot "I, who have never had not one centime of another's ! I ! 1 ! " She talked during the next five minutes, and Fraisier examined this great artist executing her concerto of self-praises. He was cold, mocking, his eye pierced the Cibot like a needle, he laughed inwardly, his dry wig moved of itself. It was Robespierre at the period when this French Sylla wrote quatrains. "And how, and why, and under what pretext!" demanded she, finishing. "Do you want to know how you could be guillo- tined?" COUSIN PONS 289 The Cibot became as pale as death, for this phrase fell on her neck like the axe of the law. She looked at Fraisier with a bewildered air. "Listen to me well, my dear," resumed Fraisier in suppressing a movement of satisfaction which the fright of his client caused him. "I would rather leave everything there," mur- mured the Cibot. And she wished to rise. "Sit still, for you should see your own danger, I owe you my explanation, " said Fraisier imperiously. "You are sent away by Monsieur Pillerault, no doubt about that, is there ? You become the ser- vant of these two gentlemen, very well ! It is a declaration of war between the president's wife and you. You wish to do everything in order to get hold of this property, to get from it leg or wing. " The Cibot made a gesture. "I do not blame you, it is not my r&le," said Fraisier, in returning the gesture of his client "It is a battle, this enterprise, and you would go further than you think with it! One becomes drunk with one's ideas, one strikes hard " Another gesture of denial on the part of Madame Cibot who drew herself up. "Come come my little mother," resumed Frai- sier, with horrible familiarity, "you will go pretty far" "Do you take me for a thief? " "Come, madame, you have a receipt from Mon- sieur Schmucke which has cost you very little. 19 290 THE POOR RELATIONS Ah, you are here to confess, my beautiful lady. Do not undertake to deceive your confessor, espe- cially when that confessor has the power to read in your heart " The Cibot was terrified at the perspicacity of this man, and now understood the reason of the close attention with which he had listened to her. "Very well," resumed Fraisier, "you can well believe that the president's wife would not let her- self be beaten by you in this race for the inherit- ance. You would be suspected, you would be watched. You succeed in getting yourself men- tioned in the will of Monsieur Rons That is per- fect One fine morning, justice arrives, they seize the sick man's drink, they find arsenic at the bottom ; you and your husband are arrested, tried, con- demned, as having wished to kill the Sieur Rons in order to get your legacy. I defended once, at Ver- sailles, a poor woman, as really innocent as you would be in this case ; things were as I say to you, and all that I was able to do in her case was to save her life. The unhappy woman was sentenced to twenty years of hard labor, and she is now serving them out at Saint-Lazare. " Madame Cibot's terror was at its height. More and more pale, she looked at this little dried-up man with greenish eyes as the poor Moor accused of being faithful to his religion might regard the Inquisitor at the moment when he hears himself condemned to the stake. "You say then, my dear Monsieur Fraisier, that COUSIN PONS 291 in letting you act, in confiding to you the care of my interests, I will have something, without any- thing to fear?" "1 guarantee to you thirty thousand francs," said Fraisier, like a man sure of his facts. "Now, you know how much I love the dear Doc- tor Poulain," she resumed, in her most wheedling voice, "it was he who told me to come here and see you, and the worthy man did not send me here to be told that I would be guillotined like a poi- soner. " She melted into tears, so much had this idea of the guillotine made her shudder, her nerves were shaken, her heart was contracted with terror, she lost her head. Fraisier enjoyed his triumph. In perceiving the hesitation of his client he had seen himself deprived of the affair, and he had wished to master the Cibot, to frighten her, to stupefy her, to have her in his power, hands and feet tied. The concierge, who had come into this office as the fly throws himself into the spider's web, should rest there, netted, entangled, as provender, for the ambition of this little man of law. Fraisier wished, in fact, to find in this affair subsistence for his old days, ease, happiness and consideration. The day before, during the evening, everything had been duly weighed, carefully examined as with a magni- fying glass by Doctor Poulain and himself. The doctor had described Schmucke to his friend Frai- sier, and their shrewd minds had sounded the depths of all these hypotheses, examined all the resources 2Q2 . THE POOR RELATIONS and all the dangers. Fraisier in an outburst of en- thusiasm had cried: "Our fortune, for both of us, is in this," and he had promised Poulain the posi- tion of physician-in-chief of a hospital in Paris, and he promised himself to be juge-de-paix of the arrondissement To be Judge of the Peace ! That was for this man of capacity, Doctor-at-law and barefooted, a vision so high and so desirable that he thought of it as a deputy-advocate thinks of the judge's gown, and the Italian priests of the Papal tiara. The thought seemed folly! The juge-de-paix, Monsieur Vitel, before whom Fraisier pleaded, was an old man of sixty-nine years of age, in sufficiently-bad health to talk of retiring, and Fraisier spoke of being his suc- cessor, to Poulain, as Poulain spoke to him of the beautiful heiress whom he would marry after hav- ing saved her life. No one knows what covetous- nesses are inspired by the various official stations in Paris. To live in Paris is the universal desire. If an official establishment for the sale of tobacco, or of stamps, becomes vacant, one hundred women rise up like one man and ask all their friends to work to obtain it for them. The probable vacancy of one of the twenty-four collectorships in Paris causes an outbreak of ambitions in the Chamber of Deputies! These prizes are given in full council, the nomina- tion is an affair of state. The appointments of a juge-de-paix at Paris are about six thousand francs. The keeper of records in this tribunal is an office which is worth one hundred thousand francs. It is one of the places the most envied in the whole ju- dicial order. Fraisier, Judge of the Peace, friend (293) 294 THE POOR RELATIONS of a physician-in-chief of a hospital, would marry richly, and would marry the Doctor Poulain, they would materially help each other. The night had passed its leaden roller over all the plans of the former advocate of Mantes, and a formidable plan had been conceived, an intricate plan, fertile in harvests and in intrigues. Madame Cibot was the peg on which this plan was to turn. Thus the revolt of this instrument had to be stopped; it had not been foreseen, but the advocate had beaten to his feet the audacious concierge in displaying all the forces of his venomous nature. "My dear Madame Cibot, see now, reassure yourself," said he, taking her hand. This hand, cold as the skin of a snake, produced a terrible impression on the concierge. There resulted from it something like a physical reaction which put an end to her emotion ; the toad Astaroth of Madame Fontaine seemed to her less dangerous to touch than this poison bag covered with a reddish wig and who spoke with a voice like the creaking of a door. "Do not believe that I frightened you wrongly," resumed Fraisier, after having noted this new movement of repulsion on the part of the Cibot "The affairs which make the terrible reputation of Madame la Presidente are so well known at the Palais that you can consult over there anyone you wish to. The great lord whom she almost caused to be outlawed is the Marquis d'Espard. The Marquis d'Esgrignon is the one who was saved from the COUSIN PONS 295 galleys. The young man, rich, handsome, full of promise of the future, who was going to marry a demoiselle belonging to one of the first families of France and who hung himself in one of the dungeons of the Conciergerie was the celebrated Lucien de Rubempre, whose affair stirred up all Paris at the time. There was a question here of an inheritance, that of a kept woman, the famous Esther, who left several millions and this young man was accused of having poisoned her, because he was the heir named in the will. This young poet was not in Paris when the woman died, he did not know that he was her heir. It is impossible to be more innocent than that Very well, after having been interro- gated, by Monsieur Camusot, this young man hung himself in his dungeon. Justice is like medicine, it has its victims. In the first case, one dies for society; in the second one, it is for science," said he, permitting himself a fearful smile. "Very weii, you see that I know the dangers. I am already ruined by the law, I, poor little obscure advocate. My experience has cost me dear, it is entirely at your service." "By my faith! No, thank you," said the Cibot "I give up everything. I would have been ungrate- ful. I only wish what is due me! I have had thirty years of honesty, monsieur. But Monsieur Pons said that he would recommend me in his will to his friend Schmucke; very well, I will finish my days in peace in the house of that good German " 296 THE POOR RELATIONS Fraisier had overstepped his mark, he had dis- couraged the Cibot and was obliged to efface the terrifying impression which she had received. "Do not despair of anything," he said. "You can go home tranquilly. Come, we will conduct the affair to a good result" "But what is it that I should do, my good Monsieur Fraisier, in order to have an income and?" "And not have any remorse," said he, quickly cutting her speech in two. "Ah, it is precisely for this reason that lawyers were invented; you cannot have anything in these cases without keeping your- self within the law. You are not acquainted with the laws I know them. With me, you will be on the side of legality; you will possess, in peace with all men; as for the conscience, that is your affair." "Very well. Tell me," resumed the Cibot, whom these words rendered curious and happy. 'I do not know, I have not studied the affair in all its bearings. I have occupied myself only with the obstacles. At first, it is necessary, you see, to get the will, and you will not go astray ; but above all, let us know in whose favor Monsieur Rons will dispose of his fortune, for if you should be his heir" "No, no, he does not love me! Ah! if I had known the value of his bibelots, and if I had known that which he said to me of his love affairs, I would be without uneasiness to-day." "Well," resumed Fraisier, "go ahead all the time! COUSIN PONS 297 Dying men have singular fancies, my dear Madame Cibot, they disappoint a great many hopes. Let him make his will, and we will see afterwards. But before all, the question is to have valued, the objects which are included in his property. So, put me in com- munication with the Jew, with that Remonencq, they will be very useful to us. Have all confidence in me, I am entirely at your service. I am the friend of my client, to hang or to take down when he is mine. Friends or enemies, that is my nature." "Very well, I am entirely with you," said the Cibot, "and as to fees, Monsieur Poulain " "Do not speak of that," said Fraisier. "En- deavor to keep Poulain at the bedside of the sick man. The doctor has one of the most honest hearts, the purest that I know, and it is necessary for us to have there at your side a man on whom we can depend . Poulain is worth more than I, I have become wicked." "Well, you look like it," said the Cibot; but I will trust to you." "And you will be right," said he. "Come and see me when anything turns up, and go. You are a clever woman, everything will go well." "Adieu, my dear Monsieur Fraisier; good health to you Your servant" Fraisier reconducted his client to the door and, there, as she had done the previous night with the doctor, he said to her his last words. "If you can persuade Monsieur Pons to call me in, that would be a great step gained." 298 THE POOR RELATIONS "I will try," replied the Cibot "My good woman," replied Fraisier, causing the Cibot to re-enter his office, "I am well acquainted with Monsieur Trognon, notary, he is the notary of the quarter. If Monsieur Rons has not one already, speak to him of that one, make him take him. " "I understand," replied the Cibot. As she retired the concierge heard the rustling of a gown and the sound of a heavy step which wished to make itself light Once more alone and in the street, the Cibot, after having walked a certain length of time, recovered her freedom of spirit. Although she remained under the influence of this conference and though she had always a great fear of the scaffold, of the law, of the judges, she made a very natural resolution, and one which would set her in silent conflict with her terrible counselor. "And do 1 need," said she, "to get me associates ? Let me further my own interest, and after that I will take all that they offer me to serve their interests." This resolution would naturally hasten, as we shall see, the end of the unfortunate musician. "Well, my dear Monsieur Schmucke," said the Cibot, entering the apartment, "how is our dearly- adored sick man." "Nod veil," replied the German. "Bons drashed arount all the nighd." "What did he say then?" "Voolishness! dat he vished dat I got his vor- dune on gondission dat nuttings is zold, and he gried! Poor man! Eet has proken my hard." "That will all pass away, my dear lamb," replied the concierge. "I have made you wait for your breakfast, as it is now after nine o'clock; but do not scold me. Do you see, I have had so many affairs to attend to on your account You see that we havn't nothing left I have got some money! " "Ant how," said the pianist "Why, my uncle!" "Vatungle?" "Up the spout!" "Te Zbout?" "Oh, you dear man! Is he not simple! Oh, you are a saint, a love, an archbishop, an innocent who can be stuffed with straw, as the old actor said. How ! you have been in Paris for the last twenty- nine years, you have s^en, what, the Revolution of July, and yet don't know what a pawnbroker is the commissioner who lends you money on your (299) 300 THE POOR RELATIONS goods ! I have taken him all our silver dishes, eight of them, with bead edges. The Cibot can eat out of Algiers metal, that is plenty well enough, as they say. And it is not worth the while to speak of that to our cherub, that will stir him up and make him yellow, and he is irritable enough as it is. Let us save him before everything else, and we will see to other things afterwards. Ah, well ! at the time, follow the fashion. When at war, do as at war, isn't that so?" "Good vooman, suplime hard!" said the poor musician, taking the hand of the Cibot and putting it on his heart, with a tender expression. The angel lifted her eyes to heaven and showed them full of tears. "Come, finish now, papa Schmucke! you are absurd. Is not that a little too strong? I am only an old girl of the people, I carry my heart on my sleeve. Yes, I have something here, do you see," she cried, striking her breast, "as well as you both, though you have hearts of gold. " "Baba Schmucke?" replied the musician, "No, to zuffer zuch crief, to veep dears of plood, to bray to Heaven zo much, eet ees too much for me ! I can nefer zurfife Bons. " "Parbleu! I believe you. You will kill yourself Listen my love " "Lov!" "Well, yes, my little son" "Zon?" "My little duck, then, if you like that better." COUSIN PONS 301 "I toan'd know qvite vat you zay." "Well, well, you let me take care of you and tell you what to do, or if you continue on this way, do you see, I will have two sick men on my hands According to my stupid ideas, we have got to divide the nursing between us here. You cannot go on giving lessons in Paris for that wears you out and you are no longer good for anything here, where you will have to sit up nights, for Monsieur Rons is going to be more and more sick. I am going to go to-day to call round on all your pupils and tell them you are ill ain't I ? Then you will be able to sit up at nights with our dear lamb, and you can sleep in the morning from five o'clock up to, suppose, two o'clock in the afternoon. I'll do the hardest nurs- ing, that is in the day time, because it will be necessary to get your breakfast for you and your dinner and to take care of the sick one, to get him up, to change his bed, to give him his medicine. For to go on as I am doing now I couldn't stand it ten days longer, nohow. And here's already thirty days that we have been keeping this thing up. And what will become of you both if 1 should fall sick ? And you, yourself, it is enough to make one shiver to see in what a state you are after having watched over monsieur just last night. " She led Schmucke up to a mirror, and Schmucke saw that he was very much changed. "So, if you will be guided by me, I will get you your breakfast right off. Then you can watch our sick love till two o'clock. Then if you will give 302 THE POOR RELATIONS me the list of your pupils, I will soon have seen them all and you will then be at liberty for a couple of weeks. You shall go to bed as soon as ever 1 get back and you shall sleep till the evening." This proposition was so sensible that Schmucke agreed to it at once. "Mum with Monsieur Pons; for you know he would think himself done for if we should tell him like that that he must give up the theatre and his lessons. The poor monsieur would imagine that he would never get back his scholars or some such nonsense Monsieur Poulain said that we can only save our dear Benjamin by leaving his mind as easy as possible." "Veil, veil make te prekfest ant I vill make a lizt ant gif you te attr esses you are righd, I gom- prehend." An hour later the Cibot, in her Sunday best, departed in great state, to the great amazement of Remonencq, promising herself to represent, in a suitable manner, the confidential housekeeper of the two Nut-crackers in all the boarding-schools and to all the private pupils of the two musicians. It is unnecessary to repeat the divers discourses, executed like the variations of a theme, into which the Cibot launched in presence of the mistresses of the boarding-schools and in the bosom of families; it will suffice to depict the scene which took place in the official cabinet of The Illustrious Gaudissart, into which the concierge penetrated, not without meeting unheard-of difficulties. The directors of COUSIN PONS 303 Parisian theatres are better guarded than kings and their ministers. The reason for the strong barriers which they erect between themselves and other mortals is easy to comprehend, kings have only to defend themselves against ambitions; the directors of theatres have to fear the self-love of artists and of authors. The Cibot, however, overcame all obstacles by the prompt intimacy which she established between herself and the concierge. These porters have a common ground of recognition, like all the people of the same profession. Each occupation has its shib- boleth, as it has its misfortunes and its scars. "Ah, madame, you are the door-keeper of a the- atre," the Cibot had begun. "I am only a poor concierge of a house in the Rue de Normandie where Monsieur Pons lives, your orchestra leader. Oh! how happy I would be if I had your place and could see passing all the time the actors, and the dancers and the authors! That must be, as the old actor said, the marshal's baton of our trade." "And how is he, that good Monsieur Pons?" asked the other. "Why he is not well at all ; here it is two months that he has not been out of his bed and he will only quit the house feet foremost, that is sure." "That will be a great loss " "Yes. I have come from him to explain his posi- tion to your director ; can't you manage then, my dear, to let me see him ? " "A lady from Monsieur Pons!" 304 THE POOR RELATIONS It was thus that the valet of the theatre attached to the director's cabinet announced Madame Cibot, having received his cue from the concierge of the theatre. Gaudissart had just arrived for a rehearsal. Chance arranged it so that no one was waiting to speak to him, that the authors of the play and the actors were all late; he was delighted to have news from his orchestra leader, he made a Napoleonic gesture, and the Cibot entered. This former commercial traveler, now at the head of a popular theatre, imposed upon his joint-stock company, regarding it much as a man regards a legitimate wife. Thus he had arrived at a financial development which re-acted upon his own person. Grown fat and large, rosy with good living and prosperity, Gaudissart had frankly come out as a Mondor. "We are aiming for Beaujon!"he would say, hoping to be the first to make a joke at his own expense. "You are yet only as far as Turcaret," retorted Bixiou, who supplanted him sufficiently often in the smiles of the first dancer of the theatre, the cele- brated Heloise Brisetout In fact, the ex-Illustrious Gaudissart exploited his theatre solely, determinedly and doggedly in his own interests. After having got himself admitted as collaborateur in various ballets, comedies and vaud- evilles, he had bought out the other half, profiting by the necessities in which the authors find them- selves. COUSIN PONS 305 These pieces, these vaudevilles, always added to the successful dramas, brought to Gaudissart several pieces of gold every day. He traded by proxy on the sale of the tickets and he claimed for himself as feux, or perquisites, of the director a certain number which insured him a tithe of the receipts. These three sources of managerial revenue, in addition to the letting of boxes and the presents received from indifferent actresses who wanted to fill the minor parts and who wanted to show themselves as pages, as queens, ran up the total of his third of the profits so well that the stockholders, to whom the other two- thirds belonged, practically received little more than a tenth of the actual receipts. Nevertheless, this tenth produced an interest of 15 per cent on the stock. Consequently, Gaudissart, backed by the support of these 1 5 per cent dividends, was accus- tomed to speak of his intelligence, of his probity, of his zeal, and of the great good fortune of his stockholders. When Comte Popinot, with a pre- tense of interest, asked Monsieur Matifat, General Gouraud, Matifat's son-in-law, or Crevel, if they were satisfied with Gaudissart, Gouraud, lately made peer of France, replied: "They say that he cheats us but he is so clever, such a good fellow, that we are satisfied " "Then it is like the old fable of La Fontaine," said the former minister, smiling. Gaudissart employed his capital in business affairs outside the theatre. He had so well taken the measure of the Graffs, the Schwabs and the 306 THE POOR RELATIONS Brunners that he invested in the railways which their bank had launched. Concealing his shrewd- ness beneath the roundness and the careless ease of a libertine, of a voluptuary, he had the air of being concerned only with his pleasures and with his toilet; but he, in fact, thought of everything, and put to use the immense experience of affairs which he had acquired as a commercial traveler. This parvenu, who never took himself seriously, lived in a luxurious apartment decorated by an upholsterer, and in which he gave little suppers and ftes to celebrated people. Ostentatious, liking to do things handsomely, he affected the airs of an easy, accom- modating man and he seemed all the less dangerous that he had retained the "platine," or glibness, to use his own expression, of his former calling, to which he added the slang of the green-room. Now, as in the theatres the actors say things very bluntly, he was able to borrow enough wit behind the scenes, to give him, when added to the lively jokes of the commercial traveler, the air of a superior man. 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 railroad, to become a solid man, an administrator, and to marry the daughter of one of the richest Mayors of Paris, Mile. Minard. He hoped to be elected deputy on his "line" and to rise under the protection of Popinot to the Council of State. "To whom have I the honor of speaking?" said Gaudissart, directing upon Madame Cibot his man- agerial glance. "I am, monsieur, the confidential housekeeper of Monsieur Rons." "Ah, indeed! and how is he, the dear fellow?" "Ill very ill, monsieur." "The devil the devil ! I am sorry for it I will go and see him, for he is one of those rare men " "Ah! yes, monsieur, a real cherub. I sometimes ask myself how such a man can ever belong to a theatre company. " "But, madame, the theatre is a place for the improvement of morals," said Gaudissart "Poor Rons ! My word of honor, it takes good seed to pro- duce that sort he is a model man, and such a tal- ent! When do you think he can get back to his post? For the theatre, unfortunately, is like the diligences, which start at the hour, full or empty. The curtain goes up here every day at six o'clock and we may be as sorry as we like, but that won't lead the music. Come, how is he, really?" "Alas, my good monsieur," said the Cibot, pull- ing out her handkerchief and putting it to her eyes, "it is very terrible to have to say it, but I fear that we are going to have the misfortune of losing him, although we take care of him like the apple of our (307) 308 THE POOR RELATIONS eyes , Monsieur Schmucke and myself; and I have even come to tell you that you must not count any more on this worthy Monsieur Schmucke, who has got to sit up every night We can't help doing as if there was still some hope, and trying to pull the dear, good man from the jaws of death. The doctor has no longer any hope. " "What is he dying of?" "Of grief, of the jaundice, of the liver, and all that complicated with family affairs." "And of a doctor," said Gaudissart "He should have employed Dr. Lebrun, our physician. That would have cost him nothing." "Monsieur has one which is like the good God , but what can a doctor do, notwithstanding all his skill, against so many causes? " "I have great need of those two brave Nut- crackers for the music for my new fairy-piece. " "Is it anything that I can do for them?" said the Cibot, with an air worthy of Jocrisse. Gaudissart burst out laughing. "Monsieur, I am the confidential housekeeper, and there are many things that those gentlemen " At Gaudissart's peals of laughter a woman's voice cried out: "If you are laughing, one can come in, old fellow." And the first person of the dance made an irrup- tion into the cabinet and threw herself upon the cnly sofa that was in it This was Heloise Brise- tout, wrapped in a magnificent scarf called Alge- rine COUSIN PONS 309 "What are you laughing at? Is it at madame? What place does she want?" said the dancer, throwing him one of those intelligent glances from artist to artist which should be made the subject of a picture. Heloise, a highly literary young woman, of much renown in Bohemia, intimate with the great artists, elegant, delicate and graceful, had very much more wit than have ordinarily the leading ballet dancers. In putting her questions she inhaled the pungent perfume of a vinaigrette. "Madame, all women are equal when they are handsome, and if I don't sniff at the pestilence from a bottle, and if I don't plaster a lot of brick dust on my cheeks " "On top of that which Nature has already put there, that would make a fine redundancy, my child! " said Heloise, winking at her director. "I am an honest woman." "So much the worse for you," said Heloise. "It isn't so devilishly bad to be well kept if you wish! And I am, madame, and swaggeringly well, too!" "How! So much the worse? It is very fine for you to have Algerine scarfs around your body and to give yourself airs," said the Cibot, "but you have never had half the declarations that I have received, Medeme! And you will never be worth the beautiful oyster-girl of the Cadran Bleu." The dancer jumped up suddenly, presented arms and brought the back of her right hand to her fore- head, like a soldier saluting his general. 310 THE POOR RELATIONS "What," cried Gaudissart, "you were that lovely oyster-girl of whom my father used to talk? " "Madame doesn't know then either the cachu- cha or the polka ? Madame must be over fifty years old," said Heloise. The dancer struck a dramatic attitude and de- claimed the line: "Let us befriends, Cinna! " "Come, Heloise, madame is not clever let her alone." "Madame is then ' La Nouvelle Heloise ' ? " said the concierge, with a mock simplicity that was full of satire. "Not bad, my old woman! " cried Gaudissart. "That is pretty old," returned the dancer. "The joke is bald-headed; find another one, old lady, or take a cigarette." "Excuse me, madame," said the Cibot, "I am too sad to keep on answering you ; I have my two gen- tlemen very sick, and I have pawned, to keep them and to preserve them from troubles, everything, even to my husband's coats, this morning. Here, you may see the tickets. " "Oh ! here the farce turns to a drama ! " cried the beautiful Heloise. "What's the matter ? " "Madame falls in here," said the Cibot, "like" "Like the leading fairy," said Heloise. "I will prompt you, go on, Medemel" "Come I am busy," said Gaudissart "No more farces, no more nonsense ! Heloise, madame is the confidential woman of our poor leader of the COUSIN PONS 311 orchestra, who is dying; she has come to tell me not to depend on him any longer ; I am in an awk- ward situation." "Ah! the poor man! but we must give him a benefit" "That would ruin him!" said Gaudissart "He would have to give the next day five hundred francs to the hospitals, who never believe that there are any other unfortunates in Paris excepting their own. No, look here my good woman, since you are evi- dently running for the prix Montyon " Gaudissart rang a bell and the valet of the theatre suddenly presented himself. "Tell the cashier to send me a note of a thousand francs. Sit down, madame." "Ah, poor woman see how she cries! "said the dancer, "isn't it dismal? Come, my mother, we will all go see him, cheer up See here, old fellow," said she to the director, drawing him into a corner, "you want to make me play the first role in the ballet of 'Ariadne.' You are going to marry, and you know how unhappy I can make you?" "Heloise, I have a heart copper-bottomed, like a frigate." "I will show some of your children! I will bor- row some." "I have openly declared our attachment" "Be a good fellow, give Pons's place to Garangeot ; that poor lad has talent, but he hasn't a sou ; I will promise you to keep the peace." 312 THE POOR RELATIONS "But wait till Rons is dead; the good man may come back again." "Oh! as for that No, monsieur " said the Cibot "Since last evening he has no longer his senses he is delirious. It will be, unluckily, soon enough finished." "You put in Garangeot for the interim," said Heloise. "He has all the Press on his side " At this moment the cashier entered, holding in his hand a note of a thousand francs. "Give that to madame," said Gaudissart, "Adieu, my good woman; take good care of that dear man, and say to him that I will come to see him to-morrow or the day after , as soon as I can. " "A man overboard! " said Heloise. "Ah! monsieur, hearts like yours are only found in a theatre. May God bless you ! " "To what account am I to charge this?" asked the cashier. "I will sign the receipt You will charge it to the gratuity account." Before leaving, the Cibot made an elaborate courtesy to the ballet-dancer, and overheard this question, which Gaudissart put to his former mis- tress : "Is Garangeot capable of getting up the music for our ballet of the 'Mohicans' in twelve days? If he can pull me out of this affair, he shall have Pons's place!" The concierge, better paid for having caused so much harm than if she had done a good action, THE CIBOT, THE ILLUSTRIOUS GAUDIS- SART AND HELOISE BRISETOUT Before leaving, the Cibot made an elaborate cour- tesy to the ballet-dancer, and overheard this question, which Gaudissart put to his former mistress: "Is Garangeot capable of getting up the music for our ballet of the 'Mohicans ' in twelve days ? If he can pull me out of this affair, he shall have Pans' s place/" COUSIN PONS 313 suppressed all the revenues of the two friends and deprived them of their means of existence, in the event of Pons recovering his health. This perfidy was calculated to bring about in a few days the result desired by her, the necessity of selling the pictures coveted by Elie Magus. To contrive this first spoliation, the Cibot would have to lull the suspicions of the terrible associate she had taken, the attorney Fraisier, and also to make sure of the entire discretion of filie Magus and of Remonencq. As to the Auvergnat, he had been brought by degrees under the dominion of one of those passions which are conceived by the uneducated, who come to Paris from the depths of the provinces with fixed ideas born of the isolation of country life, with the ignorance of primitive natures and the brutality of their desires, which are converted into fixed ideas. The virile beauty of Madame Cibot, her vivacity and her fish-woman's wit, had long attracted the second-hand dealer, who wished to carry her off from Cibot and make her his concubine, a species of bigamy much more common among the lower classes in Paris than is supposed. But avarice is a running noose which tightens more and more around the heart, and ends by stifling the reason. Thus Remonencq, when he valued at forty thousand francs the payment to her from 6lie Magus and himself, passed from unlawful intentions to crime, and wished to have the Cibot for his legitimate wife. This love, purely speculative, brought him, in his long dreams of the smoker, leaning against the door of his shop, to wish for the death of the little tailor. He saw his capital thus nearly tripled, he thought what an excellent saleswoman the Cibot would make, what a fine figure she would cut in a magnificent shop on the Boulevard. This double covetousness intoxicated Remonencq. He would (3i5) 316 THE POOR RELATIONS hire a shop on the Boulevard de la Madeleine, he would fill it with the choicest curiosities from the collection of the defunct Pons. After sleeping on cloth of gold and having seen millions in the blue spirals of his pipe, he would wake up, face to face with the little tailor, who was sweeping the court, the door way and the street, when the Auvergnat was opening the front of the shop and displaying his wares; for since the illness of Pons, Cibot had taken the place of his wife in her household affairs. The Auvergnat, then, had come to consider this little, stunted, copper-colored tailor as the sole obstacle to his happiness, and he asked himself how he could get rid of him. This constantly grow- ing passion rendered Madame Cibot very proud, for she had attained the age at which women com- mence to understand that they are growing old. One morning when the Cibot, after getting up, looked at Remonencq with a reflective air as he was arranging the odds and ends of his wares, she resolved to find out to what lengths his love would carry him. "Well," said the Auvergnat coming to her, "Are things going as you wish?". "It is you I am troubled about," replied the Ci- bot "You compromise me," she added, "the neigh- bors will end by seeing you making sheep's eyes at me." She left the door and went into the depths of the Auvergnat's shop. "Well, that's an idea," said Remonencq. COUSIN PONS 317 "Come here, till I speak to you," said the Cibot "The heirs of Monsieur Rons are bestirring them- selves and they are capable of giving us a great deal of trouble. God knows what will happen to us if they send lawyers to stick their noses into every- thing, like hunting-dogs. I can't persuade Monsieur Schmucke to sell some pictures unless you love me enough to keep the secret Oh ! but a secret, so that with your head on the block you would say nothing neither from where the pictures came, nor who sold them. "You understand, Monsieur Pons once dead and buried, if they find fifty-three pictures instead of sixty-seven, no one will be the wiser ! Besides, if Monsieur Pons had sold them while he was living, no one would have anything to say." "Yes," replied Remonencq, "it is all the same to me; but Monsieur lie Magus wants his receipts all regular." "You shall have your receipts good enough, bless you ! Do you think it is I who is going to write them? That will be Monsieur Schmucke! But you must say to your Jew," she added, "that he is to be as silent as you are." "We will be as dumb as the fishes. That is in our line. I know how to read, but 1 don't know how to write, that is why I have use for a woman, clever and educated like you! I, who have never thought of anything but laying aside something for my old days, want some little Remonencqs. Come, you leave your Cibot!" 318 THE POOR RELATIONS "Here comes your Jew," said the concierge. "We can arrange matters." "Well, my good lady," said filie Magus, who came every third day very early in the morning to know when he could purchase his pictures, "Where are we now?" "Haven't you seen anyone who has come to speak to you of Monsieur Pons and his bibelots " demanded the Cibot "I have received," replied 6lie Magus, "a letter from a lawyer ; but as he is a fellow who appears to me to be one of those little busy-bodies looking for jobs, and I am suspicious of that kind, I didn't answer him. At the end of three days he came to see me and left his card; I told my concierge that I was always out when he came." "You are a love of a Jew," said the Cibot, who was unaware of lie Magus's prudence. "Very well, my sons, in a few days from now I will bring to you Monsieur Schmucke to sell you seven or eight pictures, ten at the most; but on two conditions. The first is absolute secrecy. It is to be Monsieur Schmucke who has sent for you, mind that, mon- sieur. It is to be Monsieur Remonencq who pro- posed you to Monsieur Schmucke for purchaser. In fact, whatever happens, I am to have nothing to do with it You will give forty-six thousand francs for the four pictures?" "Agreed," replied the Jew, with a sigh. "Very good," resumed the concierge. "The second condition is that you shall give to me COUSIN PONS 319 forty-three thousand francs, and that you shall buy them for no more than three thousand from Monsieur Schmucke; Remonencq will buy four of them for two thousand francs and pay me the surplus But now, do you see, my dear Monsieur Magus, after all, that I have thrown a mighty good thing in your way yours and Remonencq's on condition of shar- ing the profits between us three. I will take you to that lawyer's, or that lawyer can come here, with- out doubt You will estimate all that there is of Monsieur Pons's at the price that you are willing to pay for it in order that Monsieur Fraisier may know the exact value of the property. Only, he must not come before our sale, you understand that? " "That is understood," said the Jew, "but it will take some time to see the things and to fix the price." "You shall have a half-day. Come, that is my affair. Talk that over between you, my children, so that day after to-morrow the thing shall be done. I am going to see that Fraisier and to talk to him, for he knows what is going on here through Doctor Poulain, and it will be a mighty hard thing to do to keep him quiet, that rascal there!" Half way between the Rue de Normandie and the Rue de la Perle, the Cibot met Fraisier, who was coming to her house, so impatient was he to get at what he called the "elements" of the affair. "Aha! 1 was going to see you," she said. Fraisier complained of not having been received by Elie Magus; but the concierge extinguished the 320 THE POOR RELATIONS gleam of suspicion which sparkled in the eyes of the man of law by assuring him that Magus had just returned from a journey and that not later than the day but one following she would procure an interview with him in the apartment of Pons to fix the value of the collection. "Deal frankly with me," replied Fraisier. "It is more than probable that I shall be employed by the heirs of Monsieur Pons. In that position I shall be even better able to serve you." This was said so decisively that the Cibot trem- bled. This starveling man of law was evidently manoeuvering on his side as she was manceuvering on hers ; she resolved, therefore, to hasten the sale of the pictures. She was not wrong in her conjectures. The lawyer and the doctor had between them gone to the expense of an entirely new suit of clothes for Fraisier, so that he might be able to present himself, decently apparelled, before Madame la Presidente Camusot de Marville. The time required to make the suit was the sole reason for the post- ponement of this interview, on which depended the fate of the two friends. After his visit to Madame Cibot, Fraisier proposed to go and try on his new coat, waistcoat and pantaloons. He found those habiliments finished and ready for use. He re- turned to his own house, put on a new wig and departed in a hired cabriolet, at ten o'clock in the morning for the Rue de Hanovre, were he hoped to obtain an audience with the president's wife. Fraisier, in a white cravat, yellow gloves, a new COUSIN PONS 321 wig, perfumed with Eau-de-Portugal, resembled those poisons which are put up in crystal bottles, the stoppers held down by white kid, whose labels and whole appearance, even to the thread around the kid, are coquettish, and which nevertheless only appear all the more dangerous. His peremp- tory manner, his blotched face, his cutaneous mala- dy, his green eyes, his general savor of wickedness, caught the eye like white clouds on a blue sky. In his study, as he showed himself to Madame Cibot, he was but the vulgar knife with which an assassin commits a crime ; but at the door of Madame de Marville he was the elegant poniard which a young woman hides in her little bodice. 21 A great change had taken place in the Rue de Hanovre. The Vicomte and the Vicomtesse Popi- not, the former minister and his wife, had been unwilling that the president and his wife should remove into hired apartments and leave the house which they had given up to their daughter as part of her dot The president and his wife had accord- ingly transferred their establishment to the second floor, now left vacant by the removal of the old lady, its late tenant, who had wished to end her days in the country. Madame Camusot, who retained Madeleine Vivet, her cook, and her foot- man, had recovered from the embarrassment of this change, an embarrassment somewhat lessened by an apartment of four thousand francs without rent and by an income of ten thousand francs. This aurea mediocritas already seemed insufficient to Madame de Marville, who wished a fortune to match her ambition ; but the cession of all their property to their daughter had entailed the loss of the presi- dent's vested right of election. Now, Amelie de Marville was determined to make a deputy of her husband, for she did not easily renounce her plans, and she did not despair of obtaining the election of the president from the arrondissement in which Marville is situated. For the last two months she had been, therefore, tormenting the Baron Camusot (323) 324 THE POOR RELATIONS for the newly created peer of France had obtained the dignity of baron to get him to advance her one hundred thousand francs on her husband's inheri- tance for the purpose, she said, of buying a small domain enclosed in that of Marville and which brought in a net rental of about two thousand francs. She and her husband would be there on their own property, and near to their children ; the estate of Marville would thereby be duly rounded, and augmented by so much. The president's wife expatiated to her father-in-law upon the depriva- tion to which she had been constrained in order to marry her daughter with the Vicomte Popinot, and she asked the old man if he wished to close to his eldest son the road to the supreme honors of the magistracy, which were no longer granted but to powerful parliamentary positions, a position her husband would know how to obtain, and to make himself feared by the ministry. "Those gentry grant nothing excepting to those who twist their cravats around their necks till they stick out their tongues," she said. "They are all ungrateful. What do they not owe to Cam- usot! Camusot, by enforcing the July laws, has brought about the elevation of the House of Or- leans!" The old man protested that he was already in- volved in railways beyond his means, and he post- poned this liberality, of which, however, he recog- nized the necessity, until an expected rise in stocks should occur. COUSIN PONS 325 This half-promise extorted a few days previously had plunged the president's wife into desolation of spirit It was now doubtful whether the ex-pro- prietor of Marville could be eligible when the time for the re-election of the Chamber arrived, for it required absolute and peaceful possession for a year and a day. Fraisier succeeded without difficulty in penetra- ting into the house as far as Madeleine Vivet These two viperous natures recognized each other promptly as having issued from the same egg. "Mademoiselle," said Fraisier suavely,"! should like to obtain a few moments' interview with Mad- ame la Presidente on a personal matter, and one which concerns her property, it is a question, say to her, if you will, of an inheritance. I have not the honor of being known to Madame la Presidente, therefore my name will signify nothing to her. I am not in the habit of leaving my office, but I know the consideration due to the wife of a presi- dent, and I have taken the trouble to come myself, all the more because the subject does not allow of the least delay." The matter thus presented, repeated and amplified by the waiting-maid, naturally produced a favor- able answer. This moment was decisive for the two separate ambitions contained in Fraisier. Therefore, in spite of all the intrepidity of the little provincial lawyer, pugnacious, bitter and incisive, he felt that which all great captains experience at the opening of a battle upon which depends the 326 THE POOR RELATIONS success of a campaign. As he entered the little salon in which Amelie waited for him, he felt that which no sudorific, however powerful it might be, would be able ever to produce again upon his skin, hardened and choked up by odious maladies, he felt a cold sweat upon his back and on his forehead. "Even if my fortune is not made," said he to himself, "I am saved, for Poulain promises me health on the day on which perspiration should set in. Madame" said he, seeing the presi- dent's wife, who came forward en negligL And he stopped short to bow with that subser- viency, which among ministerial officers is the recog- nition of the superior quality of those whom they address. "Sit down, monsieur," said the president's wife, recognizing at once a man of the legal world. "Madame la Presidente, if I have taken the liberty of addressing you on a matter which concerns Mon- sieur le President, it is that I have the certainty that Monsieur de Marville, in the high position which he occupies, would perhaps let things take their chances, and that he would lose seven or eight hundred thousand francs which the ladies, who in my opinion know much more about private affairs than the best magistrates, would not be so ready to despise." "You have spoken of an inheritance," said the president's wife, interrupting him. Dazzled by the sum named, and wishing to hide her astonishment, her delight, Amelie imitated COUSIN PONS 327 those impatient readers of novels who cannot wait for the end of the plot "Yes, madame, of an inheritance lost to you, oh! quite entirely lost, but which I can, which I shall know how to recover for you." "Go on, monsieur," said Madame de Marville, coldly measuring Fraisier with a sagacious eye. "Madame, I know your eminent talents, I, myself, come from Mantes. Monsieur Leboeuf, the President of the Tribunal, the friend of Monsieur de Marville, could give him some information about me. " The president's wife shrugged her shoulders with a movement so cruelly significant, that Fraisier was forced to open and close rapidly, a parenthesis in his discourse: "A woman so distinguished as you, will under- stand at once why I speak to you in the first in- stance of myself. It is the shortest way of arriving at the inheritance." The president's wife replied, without speaking, to this shrewd remark, by a gesture. "Madame," resumed Fraisier, encouraged by the gesture to recount his history, "I was an advocate at Mantes, my practice was, as it happened, my whole fortune, for I purchased that of Monsieur Levroux, whom you have doubtless known?" The president's wife inclined her head. "With a certain sum which was lent to me and about ten thousand francs of my own, I had just left the office of Desroches, one of the best lawyers in Paris, where 1 had been head clerk for six years. I 328 THE POOR RELATIONS had the misfortune to displease the procureur du roi at Mantes, Monsieur " "Olivier Vinet" "The son of the procureur glneral, yes, madam e. He was courting a little lady " "He?" "Madame Vatinelle " "Ah, Madame Vatinelle, she was very pretty and very of my time " "She was very kind to me;indeirce," resumed Fraisier. "I was young and active, I wished to pay back my friends and get married ; I had to get business and I looked about for it ; I soon brewed more for myself alone than all the other ministe- rial officers. Bah! I had against me all the other attorneys of Mantes, the notaries and even the bailiffs. They tried to catch me in some trickery. You know, madame, that when in our frightful trade they seek to destroy a man, it is soon done. They caught me acting as attorney for both sides in a case. That is rather sharp practice, perhaps ; but in certain cases the same thing is done in Paris, the attorneys pass each other the cassia and the senna. It is not done at Mantes. Monsieur Bou- yonnet, to whom I had previously rendered the same little kindness, instigated by his associates and encouraged by the procureur du roi, betrayed me. You see, I hide nothing from you. Well, there was a general cry I was a scoundrel, they made me out blacker than Marat They forced me to sell out and I lost everything. I am now in Paris where COUSIN PONS 329 I have endeavored to establish an office for affairs; but my ruined health only enables me to work two good hours out of the twenty-four. To-day I have only one ambition, and it is a paltry one. You will be one day the wife of the Keeper of the Seals perhaps, or of the first president ; but I, poor and feeble, I have no other desire than to get some place in which I may end my days peaceably, some post in which there is no promotion, some office in which I can simply vegetate. I want to be juge-de-paix in Paris. It would be a mere trifle for you and for Mon- sieur le President to obtain my nomination, for you doubtless cause sufficient uneasiness to the present Keeper of the Seals for him to be glad to oblige you. That is not all, madame," added Fraisier, seeing that the president's wife was about to speak, and making a gesture to her. "I have for friend, the doctor of the old man whose property Monsieur le President should inherit You see that we are getting on. This doctor, whose co-operation is indispensable, is in the same situation in which you see me a great deal of talent and no luck ! It is through him that I have learned how much your interests were in danger, for at this very moment in which I am speaking to you it is probable that all is finished that the will which disinherits Mon- sieur le President is made. This doctor wishes to be appointed physician-in-chief of a hospital, of one of the Royal medical colleges; in short, you under- stand it is necessary for him to have a situation in Paris equivalent to mine. Pardon me if I have 330 THE POOR RELATIONS spoken of matters so delicate, but our affair will not admit of the least ambiguity. The doctor is, more- over, a man in good consideration, learned, and who has saved Monsieur Pillerault, a great-uncle of your son-in-law, Monsieur le Vicomte Popinot Now, if you have the goodness to promise me these two places that of juge-de-paix and the medical sinecure for my friend, I undertake to bring you the inheri- tance almost intact I say almost intact because it will be saddled with some obligations which it will be necessary to give to the legatee and to certain persons whose assistance will be positively indis- pensable to us. You need not fulfill your promise until after the accomplishment of mine." The president's wife, who during the last few moments had crossed her arms like a person com- pelled to listen to a sermon, now uncrossed them, looked at Fraisier, and said to him : "Monsieur, you have the merit of making per- fectly clear all that you have to say about your own affairs, but as to mine, you are of an ambiguity " "Two words will suffice to clear up everything, madame," said Fraisier. "Monsieur le President is the sole and only heir in the third degree of consan- guinity,of Monsieur Pons, who is very sick. He is about to make his will, if it is not already done, in favor of a German, his friend, named Schmucke, and the value of the property will be more than seven hundred thousand francs. In three days I hope to have an exact estimate of the amount " "If this is so," said the president's wife aloud, COUSIN PONS 331 thunderstruck by the possibilities contained in these figures, "I made a great mistake in quarreling with him in overwhelming him " "No, madame, for, were it not for that rupture, he would still be as gay as a lark and would proba- bly outlive you, Monsieur le President and myself Providence has its own ways, don't let us ex- plore them!" added he, to disguise the odiousness of this thought. "What would you have? We busi- ness agents see things as they are. You understand, now, madame, that in the high position which Monsieur le President de Marville occupies, he will do nothing, he cannot do anything in the actual condition of affairs. He has quarreled mortally with his cousin, you no longer see Pons, you have ban- ished him from society, you had without doubt ex- cellent reasons for doing so; but the good man is sick, he leaves all his worldly goods to his only friend. A president of the Cour Royale of Paris has nothing to say against a testament in good form made under such circumstances. But between ourselves, madame, it is very disagreeable, when we have a right to an inheritance of seven or eight hundred thousand francs What do 1 say? a million per- haps, and are the sole heir designated by the law, not to receive our own. Only, to arrive at this end, you fall into dirty intrigues; they are so difficult, so tricky, it is necessary to interview such common people, servants and underlings, and to be so inti- mate with them, that no lawyer, no notary, in Paris, can take up with such an affair. This demands an 332 THE POOR RELATIONS attorney without briefs, like myself, whose abilities are serious and real, whose devotion is secure, and whose position, unhappily precarious, is on a level with that of such people I am occupied in my arrondissement with the affairs of the small bour- geois, of the people, of the laboring classes Yes, madame, that is the condition to which I have been reduced by the enmity of a procureur-du-roi, now become deputy at Paris, and who has never forgiven me my superiority. I know you well, madame, I know the solidity of your protection, and I have fore- seen, in such a service rendered you, the end of my misfortunes and the triumph of Dr. Poulain, my friend." The president's wife remained thoughtful. It was a moment of frightful agony to Fraisier. Vinet, one of the orators of the Centre, procureur-general for the last sixteen years, ten times designated for the robe of the Chancel lerie, the father of the pro- cureur-du-roi of Mantes, now Deputy at Paris, with- in the last year, was the antagonist of this relent- less woman The haughty procureur-general made no pretense of hiding his scorn for President Cam- usot Fraisier was ignorant, and would be likely to remain ignorant, of this circumstance. "Have you nothing else upon your conscience than the act of being an attorney on both sides ?" she demanded, looking fixedly at Fraisier. "Madame la Presidente may see Monsieur Le- bceuf ; Monsieur Leboeuf was favorable to me. " "Are you sure that Monsieur Lebceuf would give good recommendations of you to Monsieur de Mar- ville, to Monsieur le Comte Popinot?" "I will answer for it, especially as Monsieur Oli- vier Vinet is no longer at Mantes ; for, between our- selves, that little magistrate also kept the good Leboeuf in terror. Moreover, Madame la Presidente, if you will permit me, I will go to see Monsieur Leboeuf at Mantes. It will not be any delay, for I shall not know certainly the value of the property before two or three days. I wish to, and I must, (333) 334 THE POOR RELATIONS conceal from Madame la Presidente all the details of this affair; but will not the price which I expect for my entire devotion be for her a pledge of success?" "Well, get Monsieur Leboeuf in your favor and if the inheritance has the importance that you give it, which I doubt, I will promise you the two places, provided you succeed, of course." "I will answer for it, madame. Only, you will have the kindness to send for your attorney and your notary whenever 1 shall need their assistance, to give me a power-of-attorney to act for Monsieur le President, and to tell these gentlemen to follow my instructions and to undertake nothing on their own account." "You have the responsibility," said the presi- dent's wife, impressively, "and you ought to have full powers. But is Monsieur Pons so very ill ?" she asked, smiling. "Faith, madame, he might recover, especially when cared for by a man so conscientious as Doctor Poulain, for my friend, madame, is only an inno- cent spy employed by me in your interest He is capable of saving that old musician; but there is there by the side of the sick man a concierge who for thirty thousand francs would push him into the grave. She will not kill him, she won't give him arsenic, she will do nothing so charitable, she will do worse, she will assassinate him morally by giving him a thousand annoyances every day. The poor old man, if he were in an atmosphere of silence, of tranquillity, well cared for, kindly treated by COUSIN PONS 335 friends, in the country, would recover; but plagued by a Madame Evrard, who, in her youth, was one of the thirty handsome oyster-women that Paris has celebrated, grasping, garrulous and brutal, tormented by her to make a will in which she should have a handsome share the sick man will inevitably be worried into an induration of the liver, in fact, the calculi may be already forming, and it will be ne- cessary to have recourse, to extract them, to an operation which he will not survive The doctor, a good soul ! is in a frightful situation. He ought to send away that woman " "But this Megasra is a monster!" cried the presi- dent's wife, in her fluty little voice. This vocal likeness between the terrible presi- dent's wife and himself, made Fraisier smile inward- ly, for he knew very well what to expect from these soft, fictitious modulations of a naturally sharp voice. He recalled that president, the hero of one of the tales of Louis XL, whom that monarch put an end to by a Sign Manuel. This magistrate, endowed with a wife patterned after that of Soc- rates, and not having himself the philosophy of that great man, caused salt to be mixed with the oats of his horses and forbade that they should be allowed any water. When his wife was driving to her country-place along the banks of the Seine, the horses rushed into the river to drink, carrying her with them, and the magistrate thanked Provi- dence who had so "naturally" relieved him of his wife. In this moment Madame de Marville 336 THE POOR RELATIONS was thanking God for having placed beside Pons a woman who would relieve her of him "honestly." "I would not wish to have a million," said she, "at the price of an impropriety. Your friend should warn Monsieur Pons and have that concierge sent away. ' ' "In the first place, madame, Monsieurs Schmucke and Pons believe this woman to be an angel, and would send away my friend instead. Then this atro- cious oyster-woman is the benefactress of the doctor. It was she who introduced him to Monsieur Pille- rault. He recommends to this woman the greatest gentleness with the sick man, but his recommenda- tions only indicate to this creature the means of making the sick man worse." '"What does your friend think of my cousin's state ?"asked the president's wife. Fraisier made Madame de Marville tremble by the explicitness of his answer and by the clearness with which he penetrated into her heart a heart as rapacious as that of the Cibot "In six weeks the inheritance will be declared." The president's wife lowered her eyes. "Poor man!" she said, trying, but in vain, to look sad. "Has Madame any message to send to Monsieur Leboeuf ? I shall take the train to Mantes." "Yes, wait a moment, I will write to invite him to come and dine with us to-morrow; I shall need to see him to make some arrangement in order to repair the injustice of which you have been the victim." COUSIN PONS 337 When the president's wife had left him, Fraisier, who saw himself already juge-de-paix, was no longer the same man ; he felt larger, he breathed full- lunged the air of happiness and the good wind of suc- cess. Dipping up, from the unfathomed reservoir of the will, fresh and powerful doses of that divine essence, he felt himself capable, like Remonencq, of a crime to insure success, provided that no proofs of it remained. He had advanced boldly before the president's wife, turning conjectures into cer- tainties, confirming this and denying that, with the sole purpose of committing her to the saving of this inheritance and of obtaining her protection. The representative of two lives of immense poverty, and of desires not less immense, he repulsed with a disdainful foot his frightful home in the Rue de la Perle. He foresaw a thousand ecus of fees from Madame Cibot, and five thousand francs from the president. That meant the acquisition of a suit- able apartment Then he could pay off his debt to Doctor Poulain. Some of these vindictive natures, bitter and disposed to wickedness by suffering or by disease, are capable of opposite sentiments with an equal degree of violence: Richelieu was as good a friend as he was a cruel enemy. In recog- nition of the succor which had been given him by Poulain, Fraisier would have let himself be hacked in pieces for him. The president's wife, returning with a letter in her hand, watched for a moment, without being seen herself, this man who was dreaming of a happy and well-provided life, and she 338 THE POOR RELATIONS found him less ugly than at the first glance ; more- over, he was about to be useful to her, and we look at a tool of our own very differently from the way in which we would look at a neighbor's. "Monsieur Fraisier, "said she ,"You have proved to me that you are a man of intelligence and I think you capable of plain speaking." Fraisier made an eloquent gesture. "Well," resumed the president's wife, "I sum- mon you to answer candidly one question: Will Monsieur de Marville or myself be compromised by any of your proceedings?" "I should not have sought you out, madame, if I had expected to have to reproach myself some day for having thrown mud upon you, were it only a speck as big as a pin's head, for on you the spot would seem as large as the moon. You forget, madame, that to become juge-de-paix at Paris I must have satisfied you. I have received in my life a first lesson, it was much too severe for me to expose myself to receive any more such thrash- ings. Finally, one last word, madame. Every step I take, when it concerns you, will be previously submitted to you " "Very good. Here is the letter for Monsieur Lebceuf. I shall expect now information as to the exact value of the property." "That is the whole matter," said Fraisier, shrewdly, bowing to the president's wife with all the grace which his physiognomy permitted him. "What a Providence," said Madame Camusot de COUSIN PONS 339 Marville to herself. "I shall be rich then! Cam- usot will be a deputy, for in leaving this Fraisier in the arrondissement of Bolbec he can get us a majority. What a tool !" "What a Providence!" said Fraisier to himself as he descended the staircase, "what a clever ac- complice that Madame Camusot! I ought to have a wife of that kind myself! Now to work!" He departed for Mantes, where he hoped to obtain the good graces of a man whom he knew but little; but he counted on Madame Vatinelle to whom, un- fortunately, he owed all his misfortunes, and the disappointments of love are often like the protested notes of a solvent debtor they bear interest Three days later, while Schmucke slept, for Madame Cibot and the old musician had already divided the duty of nursing and watching the patient, she had what she called a "set-to" with poor Pons. It may not be unnecessary to call attention to a sad peculiarity in cases of hepatitis. Invalids whose livers are more or less affected are inclined to be impatient and angry, and these angers give them momentary relief; in the same manner that in accesses of fever an excessive strength is frequently developed. The excitement over, the reaction the "collapse", as the doctors call it sets in, and the loss of vital power in the organism is evident in all its gravity. Thus, in liver diseases, more es- pecially in those resulting from severe griefs, the patient falls, after these excitements, into a state of weakness, which is all the more dangerous when he is necessarily subjected to a low diet It is a sort of fever which fastens upon the temperament of a man, for this fever is neither in the blood nor in the brain. This excitability of the whole being produces a melancholy, in which the patient con- ceives a hatred, even of himself. In such a condi- tion, anything may cause a dangerous irritation. The Cibot, not withstand ing the doctor's recommend- ations, did not believe, she being a woman of the people, without experience or education, in this (34i) 342 THE POOR RELATIONS straining of the nervous system under the irritabil- ities of temperament The instructions of Doctor Poulain were to her nothing more than "doctor's talk." She was determined, like all those of the lower classes, to feed Pons well, and she was only prevented from giving him secretly a slice of ham, a good omelet or vanilla chocolate, by the peremp- tory order of Doctor Poulain. "Give a single mouthful of anything no matter what to Monsieur Pons and it will kill him like a pistol shot" The obstinacy of the lower classes is so great in this respect that the chief cause of their repugnance to go to hospitals, lies in their belief that persons are killed there by want of food. The mortality caused by food brought secretly by women to their husbands has been so great that it has induced the physicians to prescribe a very severe personal search on the days when the relatives come to see the patients. Madame Cibot, to bring about a momentary quarrel necessary to secure her immediate ends, related her visit to the director of 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 pa- tient for the third time, wholly unable to stop the Cibot when she was once launched on a flood of words. "And so, when I had given her a piece of my mind, Mademoiselle Heloise, who saw plain enough what I was, knocked under, and we ended the best COUSIN PONS 343 friends in the world. You ask me now what it was that I went there for?" she added, repeating Pons's question. Certain gabblers, and they are gabblers of genius, catch up in this manner the interpolations, the ob- jections and the observations of others, as a sort of provision to furnish matter for their own discourse; as if the natural source could ever dry up. "Why, I went there to get your Monsieur Gaud- issart out of his trouble; he wants some music for a ballet, and you are scarcely in condition, my dear, to scribble it out on paper and go and fill your place and I then understood, like that, that they have engaged one Monsieur Garangeot to arrange the music for the 'Mohicans' " "Garangeot!" cried Pons in a fury. "Garan- geot, a man without any talent ! I wouldn't even have him for first violin! He is a man of a great deal of cleverness and he writes very goodfeuillefons on music; but as for composing an air, I defy him to do it! And where the devil did you get the idea of going to the theatre ?" "But isn't he obstinate, the old demon there! See, now, my pet, don't boil over that way like a milk-soup. Can you write music in the state you are now in ? Why, you haven't looked at yourself in the glass! Would you like a looking-glass? You are nothing but skin and bones you are as weak as a sparrow and you think yourself capable of making your notes Why, you can't even make my kind That reminds me, I ought to go up to the 344 THE POOR RELATIONS gentleman on the third floor who owes us seventeen francs, and that's worth picking up seventeen francs; for after I've paid the apothecary there won't be nothing left but twenty francs I had to say all this to that man, who looks like a good fel- low that Gaudissart I like that sort of a name he is a regular Roger Bontemps who just suits me. He'll never have liver disease, he won't! So I had to tell him how you were Gracious ! you are not well and he's filled your place for the time being " "Filled my place!" cried Pons in a formidable voice, and sitting up in bed. As a general thing, sick men, and especially those who are within sweep of the scythe of Death, cling to their situations with all the fury which beginners display, in striving to obtain them. Thus, his being replaced appeared to the poor, dying man as a preliminary death. "But the doctor tells me," he went on, "that I am doing very well, that I will soon resume my or- dinary life. You have killed me, ruined me, assassi- nated me!" "Ta-ta-ta-ta!" cried the Cibot, "there you go! So, I am your executioner ; you say these pretty things always, parbleu! to Monsieur Schmucke be- hind my back. I know very well what you say come now! You are a monster of ingratitude!" "But you don't know that, if my convalescence is retarded only two weeks, they will say to me when I come back that 1 am an old wig, an old fogy, that my time is passed, that I am of the Empire, Rococo!" COUSIN PONS 345 cried the sick man, who wished to live. "Garan- geot will have made himself friends in the theatre, from the ticket-office down to the amphitheatre! He will have lowered the pitch for some actress who has no voice, he will have licked Monsieur Gaud- issart's boots, he will, through his friends, have published favorable notices of everybody in the journals; then, in a shop like that, Madame Cibot, they can find vermin on the head of a bald man! What demon was it sent you there?" "But, my goodness! Monsieur Schmucke talked it over with me for a week ! What is it you want? You see nothing but yourself ! You are selfish enough to kill people to cure yourself! There's that poor Monsieur Schmucke who has been dead tired for a month, he walks on his ankles, he can't go nowhere, nor give lessons, nor do his work at the theatre, for you see nothing at all, then ? He takes care of you nights, and I take care of you days. To-day, if I had continued to pass the nights here as I tried to do at first, when I thought that you had nothing serious, I should have had to sleep during the daytime ! And who, then, would look after the housekeeping and after the food ? What would you have? Sickness is sickness! that's all there is about it" "It is impossible that Schmucke could ever have had such a thought " "Wouldn't you like to say next that it was I who made this all up under my bonnet? And do you think we're made of iron? But if Monsieur Schmucke had continued his work of going to give 346 THE POOR RELATIONS seven or eight lessons every day and spending his evenings from half-past six to half-past eleven at the theatre, directing the orchestra, he would be dead in ten days from now. Do you want to be the death of that worthy man, who would shed his blood for you ? By the author of my days ! No one ever saw a sick man as you What have you done with your common-sense, have you sent it all to the pawn-brokers? Everybody here is exterminated for you everything is done for the best, and you ain't satisfied Do you want, then, to drive us crazy enough to be confined? I, for my part, I'm done for whatever the rest may be!" The Cibot might talk as she pleased, anger pre- vented Pons from saying a word. He rolled about in his bed, articulating painfully and with faint interjections, he seemed almost dead. As usual, when it arrived at this point the quarrel suddenly turned to affection. The nurse darted at the sick man, took his head, forced him to lie quiet and drew the covers over him. "How can any one get into such a state! My poor pet ! it's all because of your sickness ! That's what the good Monsieur Poulain says. See now, do be quiet be nice, my good little man. You're the idol of everyone who comes near you, even the doctor himself comes to see you twice a day. What will he say if he finds you in such a state? You put me almost beside myself ! It isn't right in you. When anyone has Mame Cibot for nurse they should have some consideration for her You cry out ! You COUSIN PONS 347 talk that's forbidden you ! You know it ! To talk, that irritates you! And why do you go off that way? It is you who are always to blame and you're always nagging me ! Come now, be reason- able ! Monsieur Schmucke and I, who love you as we do our own little bowels, we did what we thought best Well, my cherub, that's all right see now!" "Schmucke didn't tell you to go to the theatre without consulting me." "Must I wake him up, that poor dear man, who is sleeping like a saint, and call him to testify?" "No, no," cried Rons. "If my good and tender Schmucke took this resolution, I am perhaps sicker than I think I am," said he, casting a look full of awful melancholy on the objects of art which deco- rated his chamber. "I will have to say farewell to my dear pictures, to all these things of which I have made my friends ; and to my divine Schmucke oh ! can that be true?" The Cibot, this atrocious actress, put her hand- kerchief to her eyes. This mute reply made the sick man fall into a sombre reverie. Crushed by these two blows delivered on so sensitive parts, his social life and his physical health, the loss of his situation and the prospect of death, he collapsed so completely that he no longer had the strength to be angry. And he lay there, gloomy as a consump- tive at the point of death. "Don't you see in the interest of Monsieur Schmucke," said the Cibot, perceiving that her 348 THE POOR RELATIONS victim was completely broken down, "you would do well to send for the notary of the quarter, Mon- sieur Trognon, a very worthy man." "You're always talking to me of this Trognon," said the sick man. "Oh, it's all the same to me, one or another, for all that you will give me!" And she shook her head in token of her contempt for riches. Silence reigned once more. * At this moment Schmucke, who had been asleep for more than six hours, roused by hunger, arose, came into Pons's chamber, and stood contemplating him, during several moments, without saying a word, for Madame Cibot had put her finger to her lips in making the sign: "Sh!" Then she got up, went close to the German in order to whisper in his ear, and said to him : "Thank God, now he's going to sleep, he's as wicked as a red ass ! What do you think ! he fights against the sickness " "No I am on the contrary very patient," replied the victim, in a piteous tone, which revealed a frightful weakness; "but, my dear Schmucke, she has been to the theatre to have me dismissed." He paused, he had not the strength to say more. The Cibot profited by this interval to indicate by a sign to Schumcke the state of a brain from which reason has flown, and said : "Don't contradict him, he will die! " "And," resumed Pons, looking at the honest Schmucke, "she pretends that it was you who sent her" "Yez," replied Schmucke, heroically, "it vaz nezezzary. Toan'd speak ! led uz zave your laife ! It eez nonzenze to vork yourzelf to death, ven (349) 350 THE POOR RELATIONS you haf a dreasure gate veil, ve vill zell zum pric- a-prac and end our days in beace in zome gorner mit dis goot Montame Zipod. " "She has deluded you," replied Pons, sadly. Not now seeing Madame Cibot, who had estab- 1 ished herself behind the bed in order to make signs to Schmucke, which Pons could not see, the latter thought she had left the room. "She assassinates me!" he added. "How? I assassinate you? " she cried, coming forward with flaming eyes, her hands on her hips. "This is, then, what one gets for the devotion of a spaniel ? Dieu de Dieu!" She burst into tears and let herself fall in an arm- chair, and this tragic action caused a most fatal revulsion of feeling in poor Pons. "Well," she said, rising and looking at the two friends with those glances of a malignant woman, which deliver at the same time pistol shots and venom, "I'm sick of doing nothing here, but just wearing myself out, body and soul. You must get a nurse!" The two friends looked at each other in terror. "Oh! how you two look at each other like two actors! I have said it! I'm going to ask Doctor Poulain to find us a nurse! And we'll square up our accounts. You will return me all the money I have spent here and which I would never have asked of you I, who went to Monsieur Pillerault to borrow from him five hundred francs more " "It ees because hee's zo zick," cried Schmucke, COUSIN PONS 351 precipitating himself upon Madame Cibot, and seizing her by the waist, "Do haf bayshenze!" "You, you are an angel, and I'd kiss your foot- prints," said she," but Monsieur Pons never liked me, he has always hated me! Besides, he may think I want him to put me in his will!" "Hush! You vill geel heem," cried Schmucke. "Adieu, monsieur," said she to Pons, overwhelm- ing him with a look. "For all the evil that I wish you, you may live long. When you will be more kind to me, when you'll think that what I do is well done, I will come back! Till then, I shall stay at home You were my child, and since when has anybody ever seen children turning against their own mothers? No, no, Monsieur Schmucke, I won't hear nothing. I'll bring you your dinner, I'll wait upon you; but you must get a nurse. Ask Doctor Poulain for one." And she went out, slamming the doors with so much violence that the precious and fragile objects trembled. The sick man heard a clinking of porce- lain, which was, in his torture, like the coup de grace to the victim broken upon the wheel. An hour later the Cibot, instead of entering Pons's room, came to call Schmucke through the door of the bed-chamber, telling him that his dinner was waiting for him in the dining-room. The poor German went to eat, his wan face covered with tears. "Mine boor Bons rafes," he said, "vor he bre- tends that you are a vicket voman. Eet ees hees 352 THE POOR RELATIONS zickness, " he added, to soften the Cibot, without accusing Pons. "Oh, I have had enough of him and his sickness ! Listen, he is not my father, nor my mother, nor my brother, nor my child. He has took a dislike to me, well, that's enough of it! You, do you see, I would follow you to the end of the world ; but when one gives one's life, one's heart, all one's sav- ings, when one neglects one's husband for there's Cibot ill now and when one hears herself called a wicked woman that's a little stronger than coffee, that is." "Goffy?" "Yes, coffee! Let us leave these idle words! Let us come to something positive. For that mat- ter, you owe me for three months at one hundred and ninety francs, that makes five hundred and seventy francs! then the rent which I have paid twice and here's the receipts six hundred francs, taking off a sou per franc and your taxes; then twelve hundred less a trifle, and finally the two thousand francs, without interest, remember; a total of three thousand one hundred and ninety two francs. And you must think that it will be neces- sary for you to have at least two thousand francs in hand for the nurse, the doctor, the medicines, and to feed the nurse. That's why I borrowed a thousand francs from Monsieur Pillerault," she added, show- ing him the thousand-franc note given her by Gaudissart Schmucke listened to this account with a COUSIN PONS 353 stupefaction quite conceivable, for he was a finan- cier just as cats are musicians. "Montame Zipod, Bons ees oud ov hees bed! Bardon heem gondinue to dake gare of heem, remain our brofidence, I ask eet on my nees." And the German knelt down before the Cibot and kissed the hands of this executioner. "Well, listen, my good dear," she said, raising him up and kissing him on the forehead. "There is Cibot sick, he's in bed, I've just sent for Doctor Poulain. In these circumstances I must get my money matters in shape. Besides, Cibot, when he saw me coming down in tears, fell into such a fury that he will not have me put my foot in here again. It's he that insists on getting his money back, and it's his, you know. We women, we can't do anything in a case like this, but if we give back his money to that man, three thousand two hun- dred francs, perhaps he'll calm down. It's all he's got, the poor man ! It's his savings of twenty-six years of management, of the sweat of his brow. He wants his money to-morrow and there ain't no squirming out of it You don't know Cibot; when he's in anger, he would kill a man. Well, I might perhaps persuade him to let me continue to take care of you two. You be easy, I shan't mind what he takes it into his head to say to me. I'll bear that martyrdom for your sake, for you're an angel, you are." "No, I am only a boor man who lofes hees frent, who would gif hees laife to zave heem. " 23 354 THE POOR RELATIONS "And how about the money? My good Monsieur Schmucke, here's a supposition, should you give me nothing, it will be necessary for you to find three thousand francs for your wants! My gracious! Do you know what I would do in your place ? I should do neither one nor the other, I would sell seven or eight of these stupid pictures and I would replace them by some of those which are in your chamber with their faces against the wall, because there ain't no place to hang them ! for one picture is as good as another, so what would it matter?" "Butvy?" "He is so irritable! it's his sickness, for when he is well he is a lamb! He's capable of getting up and ferreting round ; and, if by chance he gets into the salon, though he is so weak he can no longer cross the threshold of his door, he will see the right number still there!" "Dat's drue, dat's drue!" But we will tell him about the sale when he gets well again. If you confess the sale to him you can throw all the blame on me because of the nec- essity of paying me. That's all right I have a good back " "I gannot disbose ov dings dat do not pelong to me," replied the German, simply. "Well, then I will summon you before the court, you and Monsieur Pons." "Dat vould gill heem." " Well, choose ! My gracious ! Sell the pictures COUSIN PONS 355 and tell him afterwards you can show him the summons " "Very veil, den zummon us dat vill be mine excuze I will show him the judshment " The same day at seven in the evening Madame Cibot, who had been to consult the bailiff, called Schmucke. The German found himself in presence of Monsieur Tabareau, who summoned him to make payment; and on the response which Schmucke made, trembling from head to foot, he was sum- moned he and Rons before the Court to be adjudged to make payment The aspect of this official, the stamped paper with its legal scrawl, produced such an effect on Schmucke that he resisted no longer. "Zell de bigchurs," he said, with tears in his eyes. The next day at six o'clock in the morning Elie Magus and Remonencq unhooked the pictures each one had selected. Two receipts for two thousand five hundred francs were thus made out in perfectly due form : " I, the undersigned, on behalf of Monsieur Rons, acknowl- edge the receipt from Monsieur FJie Magus of the sum of two thousand five hundred francs for four pictures which 1 have sold to him, the said sum to be employed for the per- sonal needs of Monsieur Pons. One of these pictures attrib- uted to Du'rer 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, and the fourth, a Florentine picture, rep- resenting the Holy Family, by an unknown master." The receipt given to Remonencq was in the same terms, and included a Greuze, a Claude Lorrain, a Rubens and a Van Dyck disguised under the name of paintings of the French and Flemish schools. "Zo much money makse me dink dat doze vool- eries are wordh someding," said Schmucke, in receiving the five thousand francs. "They are worth something" said Remonencq. "I would willingly give one hundred thousand francs for the whole lot" The Auvergnat, on being asked to render this little service, replaced the eight pictures by others of (357) 358 THE POOR RELATIONS the same dimensions in the same frames, choosing them from among inferior paintings which Rons had put in Schmucke's chamber. Elie Magus, once in possession of his four master pieces, brought the Cibot to his house under pretence of regulating their accounts. But once there he complained of poverty, he found defects in the canvases, declared the pictures must be re-backed, and he offered the Cibot thirty thousand francs for her commission ; he got her to accept them in showing her the daz- zling bits of paper on which the Bank of France en- graves the words Mille Francs. Magus compelled Remonencq to give a similar sum to the Cibot by lending it to him on the four pictures, which he made him deposit with him. The four paintings of Remonencq appeared so magnificent to Magus that he could not bring his mind to give them up, and the day after he brought a premium of six thousand francs to that dealer, who made over the four pictures to him with a bill of sale. Madame Cibot, enriched by sixty-eight thousand francs, again demanded the utmost secrecy from her accom- plices; she begged the Jew to tell her how to invest this sum in such a manner that no one should know that she possessed it "Buy shares in the Orleans railway, they are thirty francs below par, you will double your in- vestment in three years, and you will get scraps of paper which you can keep in a portfolio." "Please wait here, Monsieur Magus, I am going to see the business agent of the family of Monsienr COUSIN PONS 359 Rons, he wants to know at what price you would take the whole heap of things up-stairs. I'm going to fetch him." "If she were a widow!" said Remonencq to Magus," she would be just my affair, for here she is rich" "Especially if she puts her money in the Orleans railway, in two years she will double it I have put my poor little savings there," said the Jew, "they are to be my daughter's dot Let us go and take a little turn on the Boulevard, while we are waiting for the lawyer." "If God would only take Cibot to himself and he's pretty sick already," resumed Remonencq, "I should have a fine wife to keep a store, and I could undertake a wholesale business ' "Good-day, my good Monsieur Fraisier,' said the Cibot, in a wheedling tone, entering the office of her counsellor. "Well, what is this that your concierge tells me that you are going away from here? " "Yes, my dear Madame Cibot; I have taken in the house of Doctor Poulain an apartment on the first floor just above his. I am going to borrow two or three thousand francs to suitably furnish this apartment, which, on my word, is really very pretty, the proprietor has done it up all like new. I am employed, as I told you, in the interest of President de Marville, as well as in yours I give up the business of a mere agent, and I am going to have myself inscribed on the list of advocates, and it is necessary to live in a good house. The 360 THE POOR RELATIONS advocates of Paris allow to be inscribed on their list only those who are possessed of respectable belong- ings, a library, etc. I am a doctor of law, I have passed through my licentiate, and I have already pow- erful protectors. Well, how is our affair going on ?" "If you will accept my savings, which are in the savings-bank," said the Cibot to him, "I have not much three thousand francs, the fruit of twenty- five years pinching and privation. You can give me a bill of exchange as Remonencq says, for I am ignorant, I only know what others tell me " "No, the statutes forbid a lawyer to draw bills of exchange; I will give you a receipt, bearing in- terest at five per cent, and you can return it to me if I get you mentioned for twelve hundred francs of annuity in the will of old Pons." The Cibot, caught in a net, was silent "Silence gives consent," said Fraisier. "Bring it to me to-morrow." "I will pay you, very willingly, your commission in advance," said the Cibot "That will be making sure that I'll have my income." "Where are we now," resumed Fraisier, with an affirmative nod of his head. "I saw Poulain yesterday evening, it seems that you are leading your sick man a fine dance. Another such attack as that of yesterday, and there will be stones form- ing in his gall-bladder. Be gentle with him, do you see, my dear Madame Cibot, it isn't necessary to lay up remorse for one's self, or you won't make old bones." COUSIN PONS 361 "Let me alone with your remorse ! Are you going to talk to me some more of the guillotine? Mon- sieur Pons is an old obstinate you don't know him ! it is he that makes me mad ! There ain't no worse man nor him ! His relations were quite right, he is sullen, vindictive, obstinate. Monsieur Magus is at the house, as I told you, and he's waiting for you." "Good! I will be there as soon as you. It is on the value of this collection that depends the figure of your income; if there are eight hundred thous- and francs, you will have fifteen hundred francs a year that's a fortune !" "Well, I will tell them to value the things con- scientiously." An hour later, while Pons was sleeping heavily, after having taken from Schmucke's hands an ano- dyne ordered by the doctor, but of which the dose, unknown to the German, had been doubled by the Cibot, Fraisier, Remonencq and Magus, these three gallows-birds, examined piece by piece the seven- teen hundred objects which composed the collection of the old musician. Schmucke being in bed, these ravens, scenting the carcass, were masters of the situation. "Don't make no noise," said the Cibot, every time that Magus went into an ecstacy in discussing with Remonencq some beautiful piece of work, of whose value he instructed him. It was a heart-breaking spectacle, that of these four different embodied greeds weighing and estimating 362 THE POOR RELATIONS the value of this inheritance during the slumber of him whose death was the object of their covetous- ness. The estimation of the value contained in the salon took three hours. "On an average, " said the dirty old Jew, "each object here is worth a thousand francs." "That would be seventeen hundred thousand francs," exclaimed Fraisier, thunderstruck. "Not for me," replied Magus, whose eyes resumed their cold tints. "I would not give more than eight hundred thousand francs; for no one knows how long such property may remain on your hands, there are masterpieces that can't find a sale before ten years, and the original cost is doubled at com- pound interest; but I would be willing to pay cash." "There are in the bed-chamber glasses, enamels, miniatures, snuff boxes in gold and in silver," remarked Remonencq. "Can we examine them?" asked Fraisier. "I will go and see if he's sound asleep," an- swered the Cibot And on a sign from the concierge, the three birds of prey entered. "There are the masterpieces," said Magus, in- dicating the salon, every hair of his white beard quivering, "but here are the riches! And what riches! The sovereigns have nothing finer in their treasuries." * Remonencq's eyes kindling at the snuff boxes, glowed like carbuncles. Fraisier, cold and quiet as a serpent coiling for its spring, stretched out his flat head, and stood in the attitude which painters give to Mephistopheles. These three embodied greeds, thirsting for gold as devils thirst for the dews of Paradise, cast, each of them without con- cert, a glance at the possessor of this wealth, for he had made one of those movements apparently inspired by a nightmare. Suddenly, under the influence of these diabolical glances, the sick man opened his eyes and uttered piercing cries . "Thieves! robbers! help, they will murder me!" Evidently he continued his dreaming, though wide awake, for he sat up in bed, his eyes staring, white and fixed, and without being able to move. fili Magus and Remonencq gained the door, but they were rooted there by these words : "Magus, here! I am betrayed!" The sick man was awake now, roused by the instinct of preservation of his treasures, a feeling fully equal to that of personal preservation. "Madame Cibot, who is that man?" cried he, shuddering at the sight of Fraisier, who stood mo- tionless. "My gracious! could I turn him out," said she, (363) 364 THE POOR RELATIONS winking to Fraisier. "Monsieur has just come with a message from your relations " Fraisier made an involuntary movement of ad- miration for the Cibot "Yes, Monsieur, I have come from Madame la Presidente de Marville, from her husband and her daughter, to express to you their regrets ; they have learned accidentally of your illness, and they would wish to nurse you themselves. They propose to you to go to their country-seat at Marville to recover your health; Madame la Vicomtesse Popinot, the little Cecile, who loves you so much, will be your sick nurse, she has taken up your defense against her mother, and she has made her see that she was mistaken." "And they sent you here, my heirs!" cried Pons indignantly, "giving you for guide the cleverest connoisseur and the keenest expert in all Paris? Ha ! The errand is a good one," he went on, laugh- ing like a madman. "You have come to value my pictures, my curiosities, my snuff-boxes, my minia- tures! Value them! You have with you a man, who not only knows everything in these matters, but who could buy them all, for he is ten times a millionaire. My dear relations will not have to wait long for my property," he added with pro- found irony. "They have dealt me my finishing stroke. Ah! Madame Cibot, you called yourself my mother, and you have brought here the mer- chants, my rival, and the Camusots while I was asleep! Get out of here, all of you!" COUSIN PONS 365 And the unhappy man, beside himself through the double effect of anger and fear, leaped out of bed like a fleshless spectre. "Take my arm, Monsieur," said the Cibot, rush- ing to him to keep him from falling. "Calm your- self, the gentlemen have gone." "I wish to see the salon !" said the dying man. Madame Cibot made a sign to the three ravens to fly away; then she seized Pons, lifted him like a feather, and put him back into his bed, in spite of his cries. Seeing that the unfortunate collector was utterly exhausted, she went to close the door of the apartment The three assassins of Pons were still on the landing, and when the Cibot saw them, she told them to wait, overhearing this speech of Frai- sier to Magus : "Write me a letter signed by you both, in which you pledge yourselves to pay nine hundred thousand francs cash for the collection of Monsieur Pons, and we will see that you get a good premium." Then he whispered in Madame Cibot's ear a word, a single word, which no man could hear, and went downstairs with the two merchants to the por- ter's lodge. "Madame Cibot," said the unhappy Pons, when the concierge had returned to him, "have they gone?" "'Who, gone ?" she demanded. "Those men!" "What men? Come, you have seen some men!" said she. You have just had a fine stroke of raging 366 THE POOR RELATIONS fever, and if it hadn't been for me, you would have thrown yourself out of the window, and you were talking to me about men Are you going to be like that all the time?" "How, there, just now, was there not a man standing there who said he was sent by my fam- ily?" "Are you going to stand me out about it?" she cried! "My gracious, do you know where you ought to be put? At ' Chalenton ! ' Talk about seeing men " "fili Magus; Remonencq! " "Oh! as for Remonencq, yes, you may have seen him, for he came up just now to tell me that my poor Cibot is so sick that I am going to leave you planted here to get your wits again. My Cibot first of all, do you see! When my man is ill, I, I do not know anybody else. Now, you try to keep quiet and to sleep a couple of hours, for I have sent for Monsieur Poulain, and I will come back with him. Take your drink, and be good." "There was no one, then, in my chamber there, just now when I woke up? " "No one," said she. "You must have seen Mon- sieur Remonencq in the mirror." "You are right, Madame Cibot," said the sick man, suddenly becoming as docile as a lamb. "Well, there now, you are reasonable . Adieu, my cherub, keep yourself quiet, and I will soon be back to you." When Rons heard the door of the apartment close, COUSIN PONS 367 he collected his remaining strength to get out of bed, for he said to himself: "They are deceiving me! they are plundering me ! Schmucke is a baby, who would let himself be tied up in a sack. " And the sick man, animated by the desire to clear up the frightful scene, which seemed too real to have been a vision, had strength enough to gain the door of his chamber ; he opened it with difficulty and entered his salon, where the sight of his dear pic- tures, of his statues, of his Florentine bronzes, of his porcelains, revived his heart The old collector in his dressing-gown, his legs bare, and his brain on fire, was able to walk through the two lanes which were formed by the credence-tables and the sideboards, which divided the room longitudinally into parts. At the first glance of the connoisseur, he counted everything and saw that his museum was intact He was about to return, when his eye was attracted to a portrait of Greuze put in the place of the " Chevalier de Malte," by Sebastien del Piombo. Suspicion tort, its way through his mind, as a lightning-flash stripes a stormy sky. He looked at the places of his eight principal paintings, and found them all replaced by others. The eyes of the poor man were suddenly covered with a black veil, he was taken with a mortal feebleness and fell on the floor. This swoon was so complete that he lay there during two hours ; he was found by Schmucke, when the German, having awakened, came out of his own room to go to that of his friend. Schmucke, 368 THE POOR RELATIONS with great difficulty lifted the dying man and put him back in his bed; but when he spoke to this quasi-corpse and received in return only a glazed look, and vague and stammering words, the poor German, instead of losing his head, became a hero of friendship. Under the pressure of despair, this child-man had one of those inspirations, such as come to loving women and to mothers. He heated towels he actually found towels ! he knew enough to wrap them around the hands of Pons, he put them upon the pit of his stomach; then he took his forehead, cold and damp, between his hands, and called back into it the vital spark with a potency of will worthy of Apollonius of Tyana. He kissed his friend upon the eyelids like those "Marys" whom the great Italian sculptors have carved in their bas-reliefs called "Pietas," kissing the Christ. These divine efforts, this transfusion of one life into another, this work of motherhood and of love, were crowned with complete success. At the end of half an hour, Pons, warmed to life, resumed a human aspect; the vital color came back to his eyes, the external heat restored the action of the internal organs. Schmucke made him drink an infusion of balm mixed with wine, the influence of the wine diffused itself through the body, intelligence shone once more upon the brow, lately as senseless as a stone. Pons understood then to what sacred devo- tion, to what potent friendship, his resurrection was due. "Without thee, I should have died," he said, COUSIN PONS 369 feeling his face softly bathed by the tears of the good German, who laughed and wept at once. Hearing these words so long waited for, in the delirium of hope, which equals that of despair, poor Schmucke, whose strength was exhausted, col- lapsed like a burst balloon. It was his turn to give way, he let himself fall into an armchair, clasping his hands and thanking God in a fervent prayer. A miracle had been wrought through him! He had no faith in the power of his prayer put into action, but in that of God, whom he had invoked. Never- theless, the miracle was an effect of natural causes, as has often been verified by physicians. A patient surrounded by affection, cared for by persons anxious to save his life, if the chances are equal, will be saved, where another man, in charge of hired nurses, will succumb. The doctors do not care to see in this the effects of involuntary magnet- ism, they attribute this result to intelligent care, to an exact observance of their orders ; but very many mothers know the virtue of these passionate projec- tions of a steady desire. "My good Schmucke !" "Toan'd sbeak, I unterzdantz py mein heard resd! resd;" said the musician smiling! ''Poor friend, noble creature! child of God, living in God's presence! only being who ever loved me!" said Rons by interjections, discovering in his voice unknown modulations. The soul about to take its flight breathed through these words, which gave to Schmucke ecstasies, almost equal to those of love. "Lif! lif! and I vill begome a lion; I vill vork for too!" "Listen, my good and faithful and precious friend ! Let me speak, time is short, for I am dead, I cannot recover from these repeated shocks." Schmucke cried like a child. "Listen now, you may weep afterwards," said Pons. "Christian, you must submit I have been robbed, and it is the Cibot Before I leave you, I must tell you certain things about life, for you know nothing of them. They have taken eight pictures, which are worth very considerable sums." "Forgif me, I haf zold dem " "You!" "I," said the poor German. "Ve vere zummoned bevor der Gourd." "Summoned! By whom?" (37i) 372 THE POOR RELATIONS "Vaitaminit." Schmucke went to fetch the stamped paper left by the bailiff, and brought it back. Rons read the mysterious document attentively. Then he let the paper fall and kept silent This student of human labor, who had up to the present time ignored the moral aspects of life, ended by understanding all the intricacies of the plot hatched bytheCibot His intuition as an artist, his intelli- gence as a pupil of the Academy of Rome, all his youth, flashed back upon him for a few moments. "My good Schmucke, obey me like a soldier. Listen ! Go down to the porter's lodge and say to that horrible woman that I wish to see again the person who was sent here by my cousin, the presi- dent, and that if he does not come, I intend to be- queath my collections to the Musee ; that I am going to make my will." Schmucke went on the errand ; but at the first word the Cibot replied by a smile: "Our dear sick man has had, my good Monsieur Schmucke, an attack of raging fever and he thought he saw people in his room. I give you my word, as an honest woman, that no one came from the family of our dear sick man." Schmucke returned with this answer, which he repeated verbatim to Pons. "She is more daring, more cunning, more astute, more Machiavelian, than I thought for," said Pons, smiling, "She lies, even in her lodge! What do you think, she brought here this morning a Jew named COUSIN PONS 373 Elie Magus, Remonencq, and a third man who is unknown to me, but who is more frightful himself alone, than both the others. She counted on my being asleep to let them appraise the value of my property, but it so happened that I awoke and I saw all three of 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. That infamous Cibot maintained to me that I was dreaming. My good Schmucke, I was not dream- ing! I heard the man plainly, he spoke to me. The two dealers were frightened and took to the door." I felt sure that the Cibot would deny it! This plan is useless. I will set another trap into which the infamous creature shall fall. My poor friend, you take the Cibot for an angel, she is a wo- man who, for the last month, has been slowly killing me for some covetous end. I could not believe in so much wickedness in a woman who has served us so faithfully for many years. This suspicion has destroyed me. How much did they give you for those eight paintings?" "Vife dousant vrancz." "Good God! They were worth twenty times as much!" cried Pons. "They were the flower of my collection. I have no time now to bring a suit to recover them ; besides, it would only be expos- ing you as the dupe of those swindlers. A law-suit would be the death of you! You do not know what the law is ! It is the sewer of all moral in- famies. At the mere sight of such horrors, souls 374 THE POOR RELATIONS like yours succumb. And besides, you will be rich enough. Those pictures cost me forty thous- and francs, I have had them for thirty-six years. But we have been robbed with surprising clever- ness. I am on the edge of the grave, I no longer care for anything but you, for you, the best of human beings. Now, I will not have you stripped of every- thing, for all that I possess is yours. Therefore, you must learn to distrust all the world, and you have never known what distrust means. God protects you, I know it ; but he may forget you for a moment* and then you will be pillaged, like a mer- chant vessel by buccaneers. The Cibot is a monster, she is killing me! and you see in her an angel; I am going to show you what she is ; go and ask her to tell you of a notary who can make my will, and I will show her to you with her hands in our purse." Schmucke listened to Rons as if he were reciting the Apocalypse to him. If there really existed a nature so vile as that of the Cibot must be, if Pons were right, then it was for him the negation of Providence. "My boor frient Bons eez zo zeeck," he said, again descending to the lodge and addressing Mad- ame Cibot, "dat he vantz to mage hees vill ; go and ged a nodary " This was said in presence of several persons, for the illness of Cibot had by this time become desper- ate. Remonencq, his sister, two concierges from neighboring houses, three domestics of other tenants, and the lodger on the first floor fronting the street, were all standing under the porte-cochere. COUSIN PONS 375 "Ah! you may just go and find the notary your- self," said the Cibot, with tears in her eyes, "and have your will made by whom you please. It is not when my poor Cibot is dying that I will leave his bedside I would give all the Ponses in the world to save Cibot, a man who has never given me two ounces of grief during the thirty years I have lived with him!" And she re-entered her room, leaving Schmucke bewildered. "Monsieur," said the tenant on the first floor, "Monsieur Pons is then very ill ?" This tenant, named Jolivard, was an employe of the Register Bureau at the Palais de Justice. "He haz zhust nearly tied!" replied Schmucke, with profound sorrow. "There is near here, in the Rue Saint-Louis, 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 Montame Zipod gannot nurse mein boor vrient I gannot leafe heem in de sdade he eez in." "Madame Cibot told us that he was going crazy! " resumed Jolivard "Bons, grazy!" replied Schmucke, terror-stricken. "Nefer has hee hat hees mint zo gut ant dat eez zhust vat mage me zo uneasy." All the persons grouped about the speaker, list- ened to this conversation with a very natural 3/6 THE POOR RELATIONS curiosity, which helped to imprint it on their memories. Schmucke, who did not know Fraisier, had not observed that satanic head with its keen eyes. Fraisier, by throwing two words into the Ci- bot's ears, had been the originator of this bold scene, which, perhaps, would have been beyond the woman's own powers, but which she now played with surprising ability. To have it believed that the dying man was out of his mind, was one of the corner-stones of the edifice which the man of law was engaged in erecting. The incident of the morning had served him well, and without him, perhaps, the Cibot, in her trouble, might have lost her head at the moment when the innocent Schmucke had come to spread a net for her in requesting her to recall the emissary of the Camusot family. Remonencq, who saw at this moment Doctor Pou- lain approaching, asked nothing better than to get away. And for this reason : For the last ten days Remonencq had been play ing the role of Providence, a course singularly displeasing to Justice, who lays claim to representing it in herself alone. Remonencq was resolved to get rid, at any price, of the one obstacle which stood in the way of his hap- piness. For him happiness consisted in marrying the appetizing concierge and tripling his capi- tal. So, observing the little tailor as he drank his herb-tea, he conceived the idea of converting his indisposition into a mortal malady, and his business of old-iron dealer furnished him with the means. COUSIN PONS 377 One morning as he smoked his pipe, leaning against the post of his shop-door, and while he was dreaming of that fine shop on the Boulevard de la Madeleine, in which should be throned Madame Cibot, gorgeously dressed, his eye fell upon a little copper disk, much oxidized. The idea of cleaning economically, his disk in Cibot's tisane suddenly came to him. He attached this copper, round as a five-franc piece, to a little thread; and while the Cibot was busy with "her gentleman," he went daily to inquire of the health of his friend, the tailor. During this visit of some minutes he put his disk to soak in the tea; and when he went away he pulled it out by the bit of string. This slight addition of copper charged with its oxide, com- monly called verdigris, introduced secretly a dele- terious element into the beneficial tisane, though in homcepathic proportions, which caused insidious ravages in the patient's system. These were the results of this criminal homoepathy. On the third day, poor Cibot's hair began to fall out, his teeth trembled in their sockets, and all the economy of his organization was disturbed by this imperceptible dose of poison. Doctor Poulain racked his brains on perceiving the effects of this decoction, for he knew enough to recognize the presence of some destructive agent He carried away the tisane, unknown to everyone, and analyzed it himself; but he found nothing. It so chanced that on that day Remonencq, frightened at his own work, had omit- ted to use the fatal disk. Doctor Poulain squared 378 THE POOR RELATIONS the matter with his own mind and with the demands of science by supposing that, in conse- quence of his sedentary life in a damp lodge, the blood of this tailor, forever seated cross-legged on the table before his barred window, had become vitiated and decomposed from want of exercise, and above all, from the perpetual breathing of the exha- lations of the fetid street gutter. The Rue de Nor- mandie is one of those old streets with a hollowed roadway, with a gutter down the middle, which the city of Paris has not yet supplied with fountains to wash out the gutters, and in which the black stream of household slops rolls slowly over the pav- ing stones, filtering through them and producing that sort of mud which is peculiar to the streets of Paris. Madame Cibot, herself, went and came, while her husband, an indefatigable worker, was always seated cross-legged before this window like a fakir. The knees of the tailor became ankylosed, the blood settled in his chest, his legs, shrunken and distorted, became almost useless members. So that the copper- colored skin of the little man seemed to show that he had been naturally sick for a long time. The good health of the wife and the sickness of the hus- band, seemed to the doctor quite natural. "What is really the sickness of my poor Cibot?" the concierge had demanded of Doctor Poulain. "My dear Madame Cibot, he is dying of the disease of door-keepers. His general debility shows an incurable vitiation of the blood." A crime apparently without object, for no gain, to serve no apparent interest, ended by lulling Doctor Poulain's first suspicions. Who could want to kill Cibot? his wife? The doctor saw her, tasting the tisane of her husband, as she sweetened it. A very considerable number of crimes escape the vengeance of society ; they are in general those which are committed,as in this instance, without any startling signs of violence whatever, such as blood stains, strangulation, bruises, or in fact any clumsy blun- ders ; but above all, when the murder is without any apparent cause and is committed among the lower classes. Crime is nearly always betrayed by its antecedents, by hatred, by some obvious cupidi- ty known to the persons who surround it But in the case of the little tailor, Remonencq and Madame Cibot, no one had the least interest to seek out the cause of death, excepting the doctor. This sickly, coppered-colored concierge, adored by his wife, was without fortune and without enemies. The motives and the passions of Remonencq were as safely hid- den from sight as the ill-gotten gains of Madame Cibot The doctor knew the woman thoroughly and all her feelings, he believed her capable of tormenting Pons; but he knew her to be without the motive or the strength to commit a crime ; more- over, he saw her taking a spoonful of the tisane (379) 380 THE POOR RELATIONS whenever the doctor came and she gave it to her husband to drink. Poulain, the only person able to arrive at the truth, believed there must be some accidental cause, one of those surprising exceptions which render the practice of medicine so uncertain. And in truth the little tailor, unfortunately, in con- sequence of his stunted existence, was in such a condition of ill-health that this imperceptible addi- tion of verdigris was sufficient to give him his death. The gossips, the neighbors, took a tone which completely screened Remonencq and gave sufficient reason for this sudden death. "Ah!" said one, "it is a long time that I have been saying that Monsieur Cibot wasn't well." "He worked too hard, that man," said another. "He has dried up his blood." "He wouldn't listen to me," cried a neighbor, "I proposed to him to go out for a walk Sundays, to take a day off occasionally, for it is not too much, to have two days in a week for holidays." In short, the gossip of the quarter, usually so prompt to accuse, and to which Justice listens through the ears of a commissary of police, that ruler of the lower classes, explained perfectly the death of the little tailor. Nevertheless, the thought- ful air, the uneasy eyes, of Doctor Poulain, made Remonencq very uncomfortable, so, seeing him approach, he proposed to Schmucke with much eagerness, to go in search of Monsieur Trognon, who was known to Fraisier. "I will be back by the time the will is made," COUSIN PONS 381 whispered Fraisier to the Cibot, "and, in spite of your grief, you must look after the main chance, you know." The little lawyer, who disappeared with the light- ness of a shadow, met his friend the doctor. "Eh! Poulain," he cried, "it is all right We are saved! I will tell you about it this evening! Decide what post will suit you and you shall have it! And I, I am juge-de-paix ! Tabareau will refuse me his daughter no longer. As to you, I take upon myself to have you marry Mademoiselle Vitel, the grand-daughter of our juge-de-paix." Fraisier left Poulain a prey to the stupefaction which these extravagant words caused him, and leaped out on the Boulevard like a ball ; he hailed a passing omnibus and was in ten minutes deposited by this modern coach at the head of the Rue de Choiseul. It was about four o'clock in the after- noon, Fraisier was sure of finding Madame de Mar- ville alone for the judges scarcely ever left the Pal- ais before five. Madame de Marville received Fraisier with marks of distinction which showed that, according to his promise, made to Madame Vatinelle, Monsieur Le- boeuf had spoken favorably of the former advocate of Mantes. Amelie was almost as caressing to him as the Duchess de Montpensier must have been with Jacques Clement; for the little lawyer was her knife. But when Fraisier presented the joint letter signed by Elie Magus and Remonencq, in which they pledged themselves to take en bloc the collection of 382 THE POOR RELATIONS Rons for a sum of nine hundred thousand francs cash, the president's wife turned on the man of law a glance in which all the gold of that sum flashed. It was a tide of covetousness which enveloped the attorney. " Monsieur le President," said she, " has re- quested me to invite you to dine with us to-morrow; it will be a family party; you will meet Monsieur Godeschal, the successor of Maitre Desroches, my attorney; also Berthier, our notary; my son-in-law and my daughter. After the dinner, we will have, you and I, the notary and the attorney, that little conference for which you asked, and I will then give you full powers to act These two gentlemen will obey your directions, as you request, and they will see that all that is done properly. You shall have a power of attorney from Monsieur de Marville whenever necessary ." "1 shall have to have it by the day of the death" "It shall be held ready." "Madame la Presidente, if I ask for a power of attorney, and if I desire that your own lawyer shall not appear in this case, it is much less in my inter- est than in yours . When I devote myself, I I devote myself entirely ! Therefore Madame, I ask in return the same fidelity, the same confidence from my protectors I dare not, in your case, say clients. You may perhaps think that in acting thus I wish to fasten myself upon this affair; no, no Madame; but if anything reprehensible were to happen, for COUSIN PONS 383 in a matter of an inheritance one is sometimes car- ried away especially by a weight of nine hundred thousand francs , you could not throw the blame on a man like Maitre Godeschal, who is known to be integrity itself, but you could easily put it on the back of a miserable agent " The president's wife looked at Fraisier with admi- ration. "You certainly will go very high or very low," she said to him. "In your place, instead of desir- ing to retire as a juge-de-paix, I should seek to be procureur-du-roi at Mantes ! and make a great place for myself." "Leave me to act, madame! The office of juge-de-paix is a curate's nag for Monsieur Vitel, I will make of it a war-horse." The president's wife was thus led into making her final confidence to Fraisier. "You seem to me devoted so completely to our in- terest, that I shall confide to you the difficulties of our position, and also our hopes. At the time of a projected marriage between our daughter and an adventurer, who has since become a banker, the pres- ident was greatly desirous of augmenting the Mar- ville estate by the purchase of some meadow-lands, then for sale. We relinquished that magnificent pro- perty when my daughter was married, as you know; but I am very anxious, my daughter being an only child, to acquire the remainder of these pasture- lands. These beautiful meadows have been already sold in part; they belong to an Englishman who is 384 THE POOR RELATIONS about to return to England, having lived there for twenty years. He has built the most charming cottage in a beautiful situation between the park of Marville and the fields which formerly belonged to the estate, and he has bought up to make a park of his own, game preserves, little groves and gardens, at fabulous prices. This cottage and its depen- dencies greatly embellished this fine piece of land- scape and it is adjacent to my daughter's park walls. The grass-lands and the cottage could be bought for seven hundred thousand francs, the net returns of the meadows are about twenty thousand francs But if M.Wadman knew that it was we who were seeking to buy the property he would no doubt ask two or three hundred thousand francs more, for he really loses that much, if, as is usually done in country neigh- borhoods, they value only the land, the buildings going for nothing." "You are, madame, I think, so well entitled to regard this inheritance as already your own, that I offer to appear in the role of the purchaser on your behalf, and I will engage to get you the property at the lowest possible price under private treaty, as is usually done for dealers in prop- erty ." I will present myself to the Englishman in -this quality. I understand such affairs; they were my specialty at Mantes. Vatinelle doubled the value of his practice, for I worked under his name ." "From that came your liaison with little Madame COUSIN PONS 385 Vatinelle That notary ought to be very rich by this time?" "But Madame Vatinelle is so extravagant . Well have no anxiety, madame, I will dish up your Englishman done to a turn." "If you succeed in this attempt, you have right to my everlasting gratitude. Adieu, my dear Monsieur Fraisier, till to-morrow ." Fraisier departed, bowing to the president's wife with less servility than on the former occasion. "I dine to-morrow," he said to himself, "with the President de Marville. Good enough, I have got those people. Only to be absolute master of the whole affair, I must be the counsel of that German in the person of Tabareau, the bailiff of the Justice of the Peace ! This Tabareau, who refuses me his daugh- ter, an only daughter, will give her to me if I am juge-de-paix. Mademoiselle Tabareau, that tall, red- haired, consumptive girl, owns in right of her mother a house in the Place Royale; I shall then be eligible. At the death of her father, she will have six thous- and livres of income more. She is not pretty, but, good Lord! to jump from zero to eighteen thousand francs a year, it is not necessary to look at the lad- der!" And in returning by the boulevard to the Rue de Normandie, he let himself float along upon the cur- rent of these golden dreams; he allowed himself to imagine the happiness of being forever above want; he conceived himself marrying Mademoiselle Vitel, the daughter of the juge-de-paix, to his friend 25 386 THE POOR RELATIONS Poulain. He saw himself, supported by the doctor, one of the kings of the quarter, he would rule over the elections, municipal, military and political. The boulevards seem short indeed when, as we walk along them, our ambition goes along also upon the wings of fancy. * When Schmucke reascended to his friend Pons,he told him that Cibot was dying, and that Remonencq had gone for Monsieur Trognon, the notary. Pons was struck by this name, which the Cibot had thrown at him so often in her interminable dis- courses, in recommending this notary as probity it- self. And then the sick man, whose distrust had become absolute since the morning, conceived a luminous idea, which completed the scheme he had formed to baffle Madame Cibot, and expose her completely to the credulous Schmucke. "Schmucke," he said, taking the hand of the poor German, bewildered by so much news and so many events, "there must be a great confusion in the house; if the porter is at the point of death, we shall be almost at liberty for some moments, that is to say, free from spies, for we are spied upon, you may be sure of it! Go out now, take a cabriolet, drive to the theatre, say to Mademoiselle Heloi'se, our leading danseuse, that I want to see her before I die, and ask her to come here at half-past ten, when she is through at the theatre. From there, you will go to your two friends Schwab and Brunner, and beg them to come here to-morrow at nine o'clock in the morning, to come to ask how I am, in pretend- ing to have passed by here and to have happened to call ." (387) 388 THE POOR RELATIONS This was the plan laid by the old artist, who felt himself dying. He wished to enrich Schmucke by making him his sole heir; and to protect him against all possible chicanery, he proposed to dic- tate his will to a notary in the presence of wit- nesses, so that no one could subsequently declare that he was out of his mind, and in order to deprive the Camusots of all pretext for interfering with his last wishes. This name of Trognon made him im- agine some machination, he fancied some legal error planned in advance, some treachery premeditated by the Cibot, and he resolved to employ Trognon to witness a will written by his own hand, which he would seal and lock up in a drawer of his bureau. He counted on being able to show to Schmucke, whom he meant to hide in a wardrobe of his alcove, Madame Cibot getting at this will, unsealing it, reading it, and sealing it again. Then the next day at nine o'clock, he wished to destroy this autograph will by another drawn by a notary, which should be legal and incontestable. When the Cibot had treated him as a lunatic and a visionary, he had recognized hatred and vengeance, a greed worthy of the president's wife; for, confined to his bed during two months, the poor man during his sleepless nights and his long hours of solitude had gone over all the events of his life, as if sifting them. The sculptors, ancient and modern, have often placed on each side of the tomb, Genii who bear lighted torches. These rays show to the dying all their faults and all their errors in lighting them the COUSIN PONS 389 road to death. Sculpture here presents a great idea, it formulates a human fact The death-moment has its own sagacity. Frequently there may be seen simple young girls of the most tender age, endowed with the wisdom of centenarians, become prophets, judges of their families, no longer the dupe of any illusion. This is indeed the poetry of death. But a strange truth, and one worthy of remark : there are two different fashions of dying. This poetry of pro- phetic intuition, this gift of seeing clearly before and after, appertains only to those dying persons whose physical powers are attacked, and who are perishing through the destruction of the vital organs of the body. Thus those attacked like Louis XIV., by gangrene, consumptive persons, those who die, like Rons, of fever, like Madame de Mortsauf of stomachic trouble, or like soldiers, of wounds received in the vigor of life, they enjoy this knowledge, this sublime lucidity, and their deaths are surprising, admirable; while those who die of diseases of what we may call the intellectual forces, when the malady is in the brain, in the nervous system, which serves as an intermediary between the body and mind and furnishes the combustion for thought, these die wholly. In their case, mind and body succumb together. The former, souls without bodies, are the realization of the Biblical spectres; the others are corpses. This virgin man, this epicurean Cato, this just soul well-nigh freed from sin, had penetrated tardily into the recesses, filled with gall, which composed the heart of the 3QO THE POOR RELATIONS president's wife. He divined the world at the mo- ment of quitting it Thus for the last few hours, had he gaily assumed his part like a joyous artist, to whom everything is the pretext for a satire or a jest The last ties which bound him to life, the chains of admiration, the strong links which held the connoisseur to the masterpieces of art, had snap- ped that morning. In seeing himself robbed by the Cibot, Pons had said a Christian farewell to the pomps and vanities of art, to his collection, to his love for the creators of so many beautiful things, and he wished to think only of death in the spirit of our ancestors, who placed it among the festivals of the Christian. In his tenderness for Schmucke, Pons endeavored to protect him from the bottom of his grave. This paternal thought was the motive for the choice which he had made of the ballet-dancer as a means of succor against the perfidious natures which surrounded him, and who doubtless would never forgive his residuary legatee. Heloise Briestout was one of those natures which remain true in a false position, capable of any pos- sible trick at the expense of her rich adorers, a girl of the style of the school of the Jenny Cadines and of the Josephas; but a good friend, and not afraid of any human power, through having seen the feeble- ness of them all, and through her skirmishes with the police officers during the carnival and at the champe'tre (so-called) Bal of Mabille. "If she has got my place for her protege Garangeot, COUSIN PONS 391 she will think herself all the more pledged to help me," said Pons to himself. Schmucke was able to go out without being ob- served, thanks to the confusion which now reigned in the porter's lodge, and he returned with the very greatest promptness, so as not to leave Pons all alone too long. Monsieur Trognon arrived to make the will at the moment when Schmucke returned. Though Cibot was at the point of death, his wife accompanied the notary, introduced him into the sick room, and then retired, leaving together Schmucke, Monsieur Trognon and Pons; but she had provided herself with a little hand-glass of curious workmanship, and took her station outside the door, which she left ajar. She could thus not only hear, but see, all that was said and that took place in this moment of supreme importance for her. "Monsieur," said Pons,"I have, unfortunately, all my faculties, for I think that I am dying; and by the will of God, doubtless, none of the agonies of death have been spared me! This is Monsieur Schmucke." The notary bowed to Schmucke. "He is the only friend I have on the earth," said Pons, "and I wish to make him my residuary legatee; tell me in what form the will should be drawn, so that my friend, who is a German, and knows nothing of our laws, may obtain the property without any contestation." "It is always possible to contest anything, 3Q2 THE POOR RELATIONS Monsieur," said the notary, "it is one of the incon- veniences of human justice. But in the matter of tes- taments, there are those which are incontestable." "Which ones?" asked Pons. "A testament drawn up before a notary in pres- ence of witnesses, who certify that the testator is in the possession of his faculties; and if the testator has neither wife, child, father nor brother." "I have none of them, all my affections are cen- tered in my dear friend Schmucke, whom you see here." Schmucke wept "If then you have none but distant collateral re- lations, the law allows you the free disposition of your property, real and personal, provided that you do not bequeath it in a way to offend public moral- ity, for you must have seen wills contested on ac- count of the eccentricities of the testators, a will made before a notary cannot be attacked. That is, the identity of the testator cannot be denied, the notary has certified to his sanity, and the signature cannot be disputed . Nevertheless, a will drawn up in the testator's own handwriting, in legal form, and clearly, is seldom open to discussion." "I have decided, for reasons known to myself, to write under your dictation a will with my own hand and to give it in charge to my friend here. Can it be done?" "Certainly," said the notary, "will you write? I will dictate." "Schmucke, give me my little writing-desk of COUSIN PONS 393 Boulle monsieur, dictate in a low voice, for," he added, "someone may be listening." "Tell me then, as to your intentions," said the notary. At the end of ten minutes, the Cibot, who was visible to Pons in the mirror, saw the will sealed after the notary had examined it and while Schmucke lit a candle; then Pons handed the document to Schmucke, telling him to lock it up in a private drawer in the secretary. The testator asked for the key of the secretary, tied it in a corner of his hand- kerchief and put the handkerchief under his pillow. The notary, appointed executor by courtesy, and to whom Pons bequeathed a valuable picture, one of the things which the law permits a notary to accept, then left the room and found Madame Cibot in the salon. "Well monsieur, has Monsieur Pons remembered me?" "My dear woman, you don't expect a notary to betray the secrets that are confided to him," replied Monsieur Trognon. "All that I can tell you is that there will be a great deal of cupidity foiled and a great many hopes disappointed. Monsieur Pons has made an admirable will, full of good sense, a patriotic will and one of which I highly approve." It is difficult to imagine the degree of curiosity to which the Cibot was stimulated by these words. She went down and passed the night at Cibot's bedside, resolving to put Mademoiselle Remonencq in her place and go up and read the will between two and three o'clock in the morning. The visit of Mademoiselle Helo'ise Brisetout at half-past ten at night seemed natural enough to the Cibot, but she was so alarmed lest the danseuse should speak of the thousand francs given by Gaudissart that she accompanied her up the stairs with a profusion of politeness and flatteries, as though she were a sovereign. "Ah! my dear, you are very much better on your own ground than at the theatre," said Helo'ise as they mounted the stairs. "I advise you to stay in your own place." "Helo'ise, escorted in a carriage by Bixiou, the friend of her heart, was magnificently dressed, for she was going to a soiree given by Mairette, one of the most illustrious leading-ladies of the Opera. M. Chapoulot, a former fringe-maker of the Rue Saint-Denis, the tenant of the first floor, who was just returning from the Ambigu-Comique with his daughter, was dazzled, as well as his wife, by meeting such a toilet and so pretty a woman on the staircase. "Who is it, Madame Cibot?" demanded Madame Chapoulot. "She is a nobody, a tumbler who can be seen half-naked any night for forty sous," replied the concierge in the ear of the fringe-maker's wife. "Victorine," said Madame Chapoulot to her (395) 396 THE POOR RELATIONS daughter, "my little girl, let madame pass at once." This cry of a frightened mother was understood by Helo'ise who turned round : "Is your daughter then more inflammable than tinder, madame, that you fear she will take fire in touching me?" Heloise looked at Monsieur Chapoulot with an agreeable air, smiling. "On my word she is very pretty off the stage!" said Monsieur Chapoulot, lingering on the landing. Madame Chapoulot pinched her husband to the point of making him cry out, and pushed him into their apartment "Well, here is," said Heloise, "a second-floor which is about as high as a fourth." "Mademoiselle is, however, accustomed to climb- ing up," said the Cibot, opening the door of the apartment "Well, my old man," said Heloise, entering the chamber, where she saw the poor musician lying pale and with a shrunken face, "so you are not very well ? Everybody at the theatre is anxious about you ; but you know how it is, though people have good hearts yet every one has his own affairs to attend to and cannot find an hour in which to come and see his friends. Gaudissart has been talking of coming to see you every day, and every morning he is caught by some of the worries of business. Nevertheless we all love you " "Madame Cibot," said the sick man, "do me the COUSIN PONS 397 favor to leave me alone with mademoiselle. We have some theatrical business to talk about and my place of leader of the orchestra. Schmucke will show madame out" Schmucke, at a sign from Rons, ushered the Cibot through the door and drew the bolt behind her. "Ah, the beggarly German, he is getting corrupted too, is he," said the Cibot to herslf, hearing this significant sound. "It is Monsieur Pons who teaches him all this terrible stuff, but you will pay me for that, my little friends," she repeated to herself as she went down the stairs. "Bah! if that she-mounte- bank of a tumbler speaks to him of the thousand francs I will swear to them that it is nothing but a theatre joke." And she sat down by the bedside of Cibot, who was complaining of his burning stomach, for Remo- nencq 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,"! can trust to no one but you to get me a notary, an hon- est man who will come to-morrow morning at half past nine o'clock precisely, to make my will. I want to leave all I have to my friend Schmucke. If this poor German should be persecuted, I rely upon this notary to advise him and defend him. This is the reason why I want a notary of reputation, one of wealth, one above all those considerations which tempt ordinary lawyers, for my poor legatee will need to find a support in him. I don't trust 398 THE POOR RELATIONS Berthier, in the line of succession from Cardot, and you know so many people " "Eh! I have your man," replied the dancer; "the notary of Florine, the Comtesse du Bruel, Leopold Mannequin, a virtuous man who doesn't know what a lorette is! He is like a fairy god-father, an hon- est man who won't let you commit any follies with the money you earn; I call him the father of figur- antes, for he has inculcated principles of economy in all my friends. In the first place, he has sixty thousand francs of income besides his practice. Then he is a notary such as notaries used to be in the old times ! He is a notary, when he walks, when he sleeps; he has produced nothing but little notaries and notaresses. In short, he is a man heavy and pedantic ; but he is a man who would not yield be- fore any power whatever, when he is in the exercise of his functions. He has never had any woman to plunder him, he is a fossil father of a family ! He is adored by his wife, who doesn't deceive him, al- though she is a notary's wife. What would you have, there is nothing better in Paris in the way of a notary. He is patriarchal. He is not droll and amusing as Cardot was with Malaga, but he will never run away like little What's-his-name who lived with Antonia! I'll send you my man to- morrow morning at eight o'clock. You can sleep in peace. Besides, 1 hope that you are going to get well, and that you will make us a great deal more pretty music; but after all, life is sad enough; the managers shilly-shally, kings are niggardly, the COUSIN PONS 399 ministers make a mess and the rich men econo- mize. The artists have no longer anything but this !" she said, striking her heart "It is a good time to die in. Adieu old man." "I ask you above all things, Heloise, the greatest discretion." "It is not an affair of the theatre," said she, "it is sacred, it is for an artist" "Who is your monsieur now, little one?" "The Mayor of your arrondissement, Monsieur Beaudoyer, a man as stupid as the late Crevel ; for, you know, Crevel, one of Gaudissart's old stock com- pany, died a few days ago and he actually left me nothing, not so much as a pot of pomatum. That is what makes me say to you that our century is dis- gusting. "What did he die of?" "Of his wife. If he had stayed with me, he would be alive now! Goodbye, my dear old fel- low! I talk to you about departing this life because 1 see you in two weeks from now promenading along the boulevards and smelling out your pretty little curiosities, for you are not sick, your eyes are brighter than I have ever seen them " And the dancer went away certain that her pro- tege, Garangeot, was secure in his grasp of the baton of leader of the orchestra. Garangeot was her first- cousin. All the doors of the staircase were ajar and all the householders afoot to see the leading dancer pass out It was the great event in the house. 400 THE POOR RELATIONS Fraisier, like those bull-dogs which never release their hold on the morsel which they have between their teeth, was stationed in the porter's lodge beside Madame Cibot when the ballet-dancer passed under the porte-cochere and called for the door. He knew that the will was made, he had just sounded the concierge; for Maitre Trognon, notary, declined to say a word about the testament, as well to Fraisier as to Madame Cibot Naturally the man of law noticed the danseuse, and promised himself to make some use of this visit in extremis. "My dear Madame Cibot," said Fraisier, "this is for you a critical moment" "Ah yes," said she, "my poor Cibot When I think that he will not live to enjoy what I am going to get" "The question is, to know if Monsieur Rons has left you anything; that is, if you are mentioned in the will, or if you have been forgotten," said Fraisier continuing. "I represent the natural heirs, and you will have nothing, except from them, in any case. The will is in his own handwriting. It is conse- quently very easily attacked. Do you know where our man has put it?" "In the private drawer of his secretary, and he took the key and tied it in a corner of his handker- chief and he put the handkerchief under his pillow. I saw it all." "Was the will sealed ?" "Alas, yes." "It is a crime to abstract a will and to suppress COUSIN PONS 401 it, but it is only a misdemeanor to look at it, and after all, what of that? A peccadillo which will not have any witness. Does he sleep heavily, our old man?" "Yes ; but that day, when you were examining and valuing the things, he ought to have slept like a top and he woke up However, I am going to see. This morning I will go and relieve Monsieur Schmucke at four o'clock and if you wish to come then you will have the will in your hand for ten minutes. " "Good, I will get up at four o'clock and I will come and knock very softly " "Mademoiselle Remonencq, who takes my place by the Cibot, will know you are coming and will pull the cord; but tap at the window so as not to wake anybody." "That is understood," said Fraisier, "you will have a light, won't you? A candle, that will be enough for me. " At midnight the poor German, seated in an arm- chair, overwhelmed with sorrow, was looking at Pons, whose face, drawn like that of a dying man, showed such signs of exhaustion after so many fatigues, that he seemed to be on the point of expir- ing. "1 think that I have just strength enough to last till to-morrow evening," said Pons philosoph- ically. "My death will come without doubt, my poor Schmucke, in the course of to-morrow night. As soon as the notary and your two friends have left me, you will go and fetch our good Abbe 26 402 THE POOR RELATIONS Duplanty, the vicar of the church of Saint-Francois. This worthy man does not know that I am sick, and I wish to receive the holy sacrament to-morrow at mid-day. " He made a long pause. "God has not willed that life should be to me what I longed for," he resumed. "I could have loved a wife, children, a family, so well! To be cherished by a few faces in a quiet home was my sole ambition. Life is bitter to everybody, for I have seen others having all these things which I so vainly desired, and they were not happy. At the close of my life the good God has enabled me to find an unhoped-for consolation in giving me such a friend as thou ! And I have not to reproach myself with ever having misunderstood or not appreciated thee, my good Schmucke; I have given thee all my heart, and all my powers of loving. Don't weep, Schmucke, or I must be silent, and it is so sweet for me to talk to thee of ourselves. Had I listened to thy advice I would have lived. I would have quitted the world and my old habits and I should not have received this mortal wound, but now I desire to con- cern myself only with thee!" "Toan'd dink ov me! " "Do not oppose me, listen to me, my dear friend. "Thou hast the innocence, the candor, of a child of six years, that has never left its mother's side, that is very proper, it seems to me that God himself should take care of beings like to thee. But men are so wicked that I must forewarn thee against COUSIN PONS 403 them. Thou art about to lose thy noble confidence, thy sacred credulity, that grace of spotless souls which belongs only to men of genius, or to hearts like thine. Thou wilt presently see Madame Cibot, who watched us through the opening of the half- closed door, come in and take this false will. I presume that the hussy will do this this morning, when she thinks that thou art asleep. Listen to me well, and follow my instructions to the letter. Do you hear me?" asked the sick man. Schmucke, overwhelmed with grief and seized with a fearful trembling, had let his head fall on the back of his chair and seemed to have fainted away. "Yez, I hear you, put as eef you vere do hundret veet avay. Eet zeems to me zat I vill zink into der doom mit you," said the German, whose misery was crushing him. He came near to Pons, took one hand, which he held between his own, and offered up, mentally, a fervent prayer. *'What art thou murmuring to thyself in Ger- man?" "I hafe brayed to Gott to take uz to heemself to- gedder," replied he simply, when he had finished his prayer. Pons leaned over with difficulty, for he suffered an intolerable pain in his liver. He stooped until he touched Schmucke and kissed him on the forehead, shedding his soul like a benediction upon this fellow-creature, comparable to the lamb which re- poses at the feet of God. 404 THE POOR RELATIONS "So, now listen to me, my good Schmucke, the dying must be obeyed." "I leesen." "There is an entrance from your chamber into mine, by the little door in your alcove which opens into one of the cabinets of mine." "Yez, put eet ees all joked up mit bictures." "You must then clear them out immediately, with- out making too much noise." "Yez." "Clear the passage at both ends, into your room as into mine, then leave your door ajar. When the Cibot comes to relieve your watch and she is likely to come an hour earlier than usual this morning you must go away as usual, as if to sleep, and you will appear 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, opening the little muslin curtain of that door and watch well all that happens. You understand ? " "I unterstant you. You dink dat she-fillain vill purn der vill." "I don't know what she will do, but I am sure that you will never think her an angel afterwards. Now give me some music, comfort me with one of your improvisations. That will occupy your mind, you will lose your gloomy ideas and you will fill for me this sorrowful night with your poems." Schmucke placed himself at the piano. Thus invoked, and at the end of a few minutes, the musi- cal inspiration, quickened by the quivering of grief COUSIN PONS 405 and the agitation which it caused him, transported, as it ever did the good German, beyond the confines of earth. He found sublime themes, upon which he embroidered variations executed now with the sorrow and the Raphaelesque perfection of Chopin, now with the passion and the Dantesque grandeur of Liszt, the two musical organizations which ap- proach the nearest to that of Paganini. Execution brought up to this degree of perfection puts the performer apparently on the level of the poet ; he is to the composer what the actor is to the author, a divine interpreter of things divine. But during this night, in which Schmucke made Pons to hear, in advance, the concerts of heaven, that delicious music which made the instruments fall from the hands of St Cecilia, he was at once Beethoven and Paga- nini, 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 its roulades, he surpassed himself, and plunged the old musician who listened to him, into the ecstacy which Raphael has painted and which all the world goes to see at Bologna. This poem was interrupted by a frightful ringing. The maid of the tenants of the first-floor came to beg Schmucke, in her employers' names, to put a stop to this Sabbat Monsieur, Madame and Mademoiselle Chapoulot having been awakened could not go to sleep again, and they begged to observe that the day was long enough to rehearse theatrical music, and that in a household in the Mairie, no one ought to strum the 406 THE POOR RELATIONS piano all night It was about three o'clock in the morning. At half-past three, as foretold by Pons, who really seemed to have overheard the confer- ence between Fraisier and the Cibot, the concierge appeared. The sick man gave Schmucke an intel- ligent look which meant, "did I not guess right?" and then settled himself in the position of a man who was sound asleep. Madame Cibot's belief in Schmucke's simplicity was so profound and in this may be found one of the chief means as well as the chief reason of the success of children's stratagems, that she could not suspect him of falsehood when he came to her and said to her with an air at once woeful and joyful, "He has hat a treatful nighd ; mit a tiapolic egzite- ment! I vas opliged to make some muzeec to galm him ant der lotgers on die first floor zent vord to me to ztop! It is frightful, for it conzerns ze life of my frient I am zo dired mit playing der music all nighd long dat I am ready to trob dis mornings." "My poor Cibot also is very sick, and one day more like that of yesterday, there will be no hope for him. But what can one do? It is the will of God." "You haf a heart so honest, zo goot a zoul, zat if der poor Zibod dies ve vill live togedder!" said the wily Schmucke. When simple and upright people begin to dissem- ble they are terrible, absolutely like children who set their traps with the perfect skill of savages. COUSIN PONS 407 "Well, you go and sleep, my son !" said the Cibot, "your eyes are so tired that they are popping out of your head. Go now, what would console me for the loss of Cibot, that would be to think that I could finish my days with a good man like you. Well, be easy, I'll lead that Madame Chapoulot a pretty dance. The idea of a retired shop-keeper putting on such airs." Schmucke went and posted himself for observa- tion, in the place he had arranged. The Cibot had left the door of the apartment ajar, and Fraisier after having entered, closed the door very softly when Schmucke had shut himself up in his own apartment The attorney was furnished with a lighted candle and with a piece of very fine brass wire with which to open the will. The Cibot was able to extract the handkerchief in which the key of the secretary was knotted, and which she found under Pons's pillow, all the more easily that the sick man had carefully left the end of it in sight below the bolster, and that he lent himself to her manoeuvre by keeping his nose turned toward the wall, and in a position which made it easy for her to draw away the handkerchief. The Cibot went straight to the secretary, opened it, trying to make as little noise as possible, found the spring of the secret drawer and ran with the will in her hand into the salon. This strange proceeding puzzled Pons to the utmost As for Schmucke, he was trembling from head to foot as if he had committed a crime. "Go back to your post," said Fraisier receiving 408 THE POOR RELATIONS the will from the Cibot, "for if he wakes up he must see you there." After unsealing the envelope, with an adroitness which proved that this was not his first attempt, Fraisier was plunged into profound astonishment by the perusal of this remarkable document "THIS IS MY WILL. "To-day, April 15, 1845, being of sound mind, as this will written in presence of M. Trognon, notary, will prove; feeling that I am about to die soon of the disease under which I have been suffer- ing since the early part of February last, and desiring to dispose of all my property, I hereby make known my last wishes as follows : "I have always been struck with the unfortunate circumstances which injure the great masterpieces of painting and which often have brought about their destruction. I have pitied noble pictures con- demned to travel from country to country, without ever being able to remain stationary in any one place, where the admirers of these chefs-d'oeuvre might go to see them. I have always thought that these truly immortal productions of the famous mas- ters should be national property, and should be kept continuously before the eyes of the people, like light itself, God's own masterpiece, which shines for all His children. "And Whereas, having passed my life in collect- ing and choosing certain pictures which are glorious COUSIN PONS 409 works of the greatest masters, which pictures are in their first condition, not retouched nor repainted, I have not considered without pain that these can- vases, which have been the happiness of my life, might come to the hammer, and go, some of them to England, some of them to Russia, dispersed and scattered as they were before they came together in my possession; I have therefore resolved to save them from such peril, and also the magnificent frames which enclose them, and which are all by the hands of skilful workmen. "Therefore, with such motives, I give and be- queath to the King, to make part and parcel of the Musee du Louvre, the pictures which compose my collection, on condition, in case the legacy be ac- cepted, that he shall pay to my friend, Wilhelm Schmucke, an annuity of two thousand four hundred francs. "If the King, as usufructuary of the Musee, does not accept the legacy on this condition, then the said pictures are to become part of the bequest I hereby make to my friend Schmucke of all the prop- erty of which I die possessed, directing him to give my 'Head of a Monkey,' by Goya, to my cousin, the President Camusot; the 'Flower Piece/ tulips, by Abraham Mignon, to M. Trognon, notary, whom I appoint my executor, and to pay a yearly sum of two hundred francs to Madame Cibot, who has had charge of my household for the last ten years. "And finally, I request my friend Schmucke to give 'The Descent from the Cross,' by Rubens, 410 THE POOR RELATIONS the sketch of his famous picture at Antwerp, to my parish church for the decoration of a chapel, in gratitude for the kindness shown me by Monsieur le Vicaire Duplanty, to whom I owe the privilege of dying as a Christian and a Catholic," etc. * "It is ruin!" said Fraisier, "the ruin of all my hopes! Ah! I begin to believe what the presi- dent's wife told me about the malignity of this old artist" "Well," said the Cibot, coming in. "Your monsieur is a monster, he gives every- thing to the Musee, to the State. Now, you cannot bring a suit against the State. The will cannot be broken. We are robbed, ruined, plundered, assas- sinated !" "What has he given me? " "Two hundred francs a year. " "A fine bequest! Why! he is a complete rascal ! " "Go in and watch, " said Fraisier, "I am going to put the will of your blackguard back in the envelope." As soon as Madame Cibot had turned her back, Fraisier adroitly substituted a sheet of blank paper in place of the will, which he put in his pocket; then he resealed the envelope with so much skill that he showed the seal to Madame Cibot when she returned, asking her if she could see the slightest trace of the operation. The Cibot took the envel- ope, felt it all over, found it full and sighed heavily. She had hoped that Fraisier might have burned the fatal paper himself. (411) 412 THE POOR RELATIONS "Well, what are we to do, my dear Monsieur Fraisier ? " she demanded. " Ah ! that is your affair ! As for me, I am not an heir, but, if I had the slightest right to that," said he, indicating the collection, "I know very well what I should do. " "That is just what I am asking you," said the Cibot, with an air of stupidity. "There is a fire in the chimney-place," replied he, rising to go away. "Anyhow, nobody but you and I would know about it," said the Cibot "It can never be proved that a will has existed," returned the man of law. "And you?" "I ! If Monsieur Pons dies without a will, I will guarantee you one hundred thousand francs." "Ah yes, I know," said she, "people will prom- ise you mountains of gold and when it comes to paying they will cut you down like " She stopped just in time, for she was on the point of speaking of lie Magus to Fraisier. "I am off," said Fraisier. "It won't do, for your sake, for me to be seen in this apartment; but I'll meet you below in the lodge." After having closed the door, the Cibot returned, the will in her hand, fully determined to throw it into the fire; but when she got back into the chamber and moved toward the chimney she felt herself seized by the two arms ! She saw herself between Pons and Schmucke, who had both been COUSIN PONS 413 standing close against the partition-wall, on each side of the door. "Ah ! " screamed the Cibot She fell flat on her face in frightful convulsions, whether real or pretended was never known. The sight made such an impression on Pons that he was seized with a deadly faintness, and Schmucke left the Cibot on the floor while he put Pons back into bed. The two friends trembled like persons who, in the execution of a painful purpose, have exceeded their strength. When Pons was again in bed, and when Schmucke recovered something of his self- possession, they heard sobs. The Cibot, on her knees, dissolved in tears, stretched her hands toward the two friends, supplicating them in a most ex- pressive pantomime. "It was pure curiosity!" she cried, seeing that she had attracted the attention of the two friends ; "my dear Monsieur Pons! that is the failing of all women, you know! But I did not know how to read your will, and I was bringing it back." "Ged oud ! " cried Schmucke, springing to his feet and swelling with all the majesty of his indigna- tion. "You air a monzder! you have dried to gill my good Bons. He vas righd ! you air vorse zan a monzder, you air a tefil ! " The Cibot, seeing the horror which was painted on the face of the honest German, rose, proud as Tartuffe, threw upon Schmucke a glance which made him tremble, and went out, carrying under her gown a glorious little picture by Metzu, which Elie 4M THE POOR RELATIONS Magus had greatly admired and which he had called "a gem." The Cibot found Fraisier waiting for her in the lodge, hoping that she had burned the envelope and the blank paper which he had substi- tuted for the will ; he was much astonished when he saw his terrified client with her convulsed visage. "What has happened? " "What has happened, my dear Monsieur Fraisier, is that under pretext of giving me good advice and of directing me, you have made me lose forever my annuity and the good-will of those gentlemen. " And she launched into one of those torrents of words in which she excelled. "Do not talk so much foolishness," said Fraisier, dryly, stopping his client short, "get to the fact, get to the fact! and quickly." "Well, then, it was just this way." She recounted the scene as it had taken place. "I have made you lose nothing," said Fraisier. "Those two gentlemen have doubted your honesty or they would not have set that trap; they were waiting for you, they have been watching you. You do not tell me all," added the man of law, casting a tigerish look on the woman. "I ! Hide anything from you ! after all that we have done together!" said she, shuddering. "But, my dear, I have done nothing reprehensi- ble!" said Fraisier, manifesting thus his intention of denying his nocturnal visit to Pons's apartment The Cibot felt her hair stand on end, and an icy chill enveloped her. COUSIN PONS 415 "What do you mean ? " said she, stupefied. "It is a criminal affair, all complete! You can be charged with abstracting a will." The Cibot gave a start of terror. "Make your mind easy, I am your counsel," he added. "I have only wished to show you how easy it would be, in one way or another, to bring about what I warned you of. Come now, what is it that you have done to make that German, who is so innocent, hide himself in the room without your knowing it?" "Nothing at all ! it was that affair of the other day when I maintained to Monsieur Rons that he had seen double. Ever since that day those two gentle- men have turned right round against me. And so you are the cause of all my troubles, for even if I had lost my hold over Monsieur Pons I was sure of the German, who was already speaking of marrying me, or of taking me with him, it is all the same thing." This explanation was so plausible that Fraisier was obliged to accept it "Do not fear," he resumed, "I have promised you the annuity, I shall keep my word. Up to this time everything in this affair was hypothetical, but now it is worth bank-notes. You shall not have less than twelve hundred francs a year. But it will be necessary, my dear Madame Cibot, that you should obey my orders and execute them intelligently." "Yes, my dear Monsieur Fraisier," said she with servile submission, for she was completely crushed. 416 THE POOR RELATIONS "Very well, adieu," replied Fraisier, leaving the lodge and carrying off with him the dangerous will. He returned home joyous, for the document was a powerful weapon. "I will have," said he, "a strong security against the bad faith of Madame la Presidente de Marville. If she should take it into her head not to keep her word, she shall lose the inheritance." At daybreak, Remonencq, after having opened his shop and leaving it in charge of his sister, went, according to a custom which he had adopted within the last few days, to enquire after his good friend Cibot, and he found Madame Cibot contemplating the picture by Metzu, and asking herself why a lit- tle bit of painted wood should be worth so much money. "Ah! Ah!" said he, looking over her shoulder, "that is the only one Monsieur Magus regretted not having; he said that with that little thing there, nothing would be wanting to his happiness." "What will he give for it?" asked the Cibot "Now, if you will promise to marry me in the year of your widowhood," answered Remonencq, "I'll engage to get you twenty thousand francs from Elie Magus, and if you don't marry me you will never be able to sell that picture for more than one thousand francs." "Why not?" " Because you would be obliged to give a receipt as the owner of it, and you would then have a lawsuit with the heirs. If you are my wife, it is I who will COUSIN PONS 417 sell it to Monsieur Magus, and nothing is required of a dealer but the entry of the purchase in his books, and I will write that Monsieur Schmucke sold it to me. Come, put that little board in my hands. If your husband dies, you might be a good deal bothered about it, and no one would think it queer that I had a picture among my goods. You know me well enough. Besides, if you like, I will give you a receipt." In the criminal situation in which she was surprised, the rapacious concierge agreed to this proposal, which put her forever in the power of the dealer. "You are right, bring me a receipt," she said, locking the picture up in her bureau. " Neighbor," said the dealer in a low voice, draw- ing the Cibot to the threshold of the door, " I see plainly that we cannot save our poor friend Cibot; Doctor Poulain gave him up yesterday evening and said he could not last out the day. It is a great misfortune! But after all, you are not in your right place here. Your right place would be in a fine curiosity shop in the Boulevard des Capucines. Do you know that I have made very near a hundred thousand francs in ten years, and that if you should have as much some day, I'll engage to make a fine fortune for you, if you are my wife. You will be a bourgeoise , well served by my sister who will do the housekeeping, and " The tempter was interrupted by the heart-rending moans of the little tailor, whose death agony was beginning. 27 4i 8 THE POOR RELATIONS "Go away," said the Cibot, " you are a monster to talk to me of these things when my poor man is dying in such a state." " It is because I love you, " said Remonencq, " I'd stop at nothing in order to have you." "If you loved me you would say nothing to me just now, she replied. And Remonencq returned to his shop, sure of marrying the Cibot At ten o'clock there was around the door of the house a sort of tumult, for the last sacraments were being administered to Monsieur Cibot All his friends, the concierges, the porters, male and female, of the Rue de Normandie and the adjacent streets, crowded the lodge, the porte-cochere and the pave- ment before the house. No one, therefore, paid the least attention to Monsieur Leopold Mannequin, who came with one of his associates, nor to Schwab and Brunner, who were able to go up to Pons's apartment without being seen by Madame Cibot The con- cierge of the neighboring house, of whom the notary enquired on which floor Monsieur Pons lived, desig- nated the apartment to him. As to Brunner, who came with Schwab, he had already been in the house to see the Pons collection, he passed without asking anyone and showed the way to his com- panion. Pons formally revoked his will of the day before and bequeathed his whole property to Schmucke. This act accomplished, Pons, having thanked Schwab and Brunner and after having earn- estly commended the interests of Schmucke to the care of Monsieur Leopold Mannequin, sank into such a condition of exhaustion in consequence of the energy which he had displayed, both in the nocturnal scene with the Cibot and also in this last act of his social life, that Schmucke begged Schwab to go (419) 420 THE POOR RELATIONS at once and inform the Abbe Duplanty, for he was unwilling to leave his friend's side, and Pons was asking for the sacrament. Seated at the foot of her husband's bed, the Cibot thought nothing of Schmucke's breakfast, and she had, moreover, been turned out of their apartment by the two friends, but the events of this morning, the spectacle of the resigned death of Pons, who was facing death heroically, had so wrung Schmucke's heart that he felt no hunger. Nevertheless, about two o'clock in the afternoon, having seen nothing of the old German, Madame Cibot, as much from curiosity as from self-interest, asked Remonencq's sister to go up and see if Schmucke wanted anything. At this very moment the Abbe Duplanty, to whom the poor musician had made his last confession, was administering extreme unction. Mademoiselle Remonencq con- sequently disturbed this ceremony by reiterated pulls of 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 Mademoi- selle Remonencq go on ringing, so that she finally descended quite frightened and told the Cibot that Schmucke did not open the door to her. This marked circumstance was taken note of by Fraisier. Schmucke, who had never seen anyone die, was about to encounter all the difficulties which beset a man in Paris when he has a corpse upon his hands, especially when he is without help or representa- tives, or means of succor. Fraisier, who knew that COUSIN PONS 421 relations, really afflicted, lose their heads at such a time, and who since morning had been stationed in the porter's lodge in constant conference with Doctor Poulain, now conceived the idea of himself directing all Schmucke's proceedings. This is how the two friends, Doctor Poulain and Fraisier, went to work to bring about this important result The beadle of the Church of Saint-Francois, a former dealer in glassware named Cantinet, lived in the Rue d'Orleans in the house adjoining that of Doctor Poulain. Madame Cantinet, one of the col- lectors of the rents of chairs in the church, had been treated gratuitously by Doctor Poulain, to whom she was naturally friendly through motives of grati- tude, and to whom she had often related all the troubles of her life. The two Nut-crackers, who attended the services at Saint-Francois on every Sunday and fte day, were on good terms with the beadle, the verger, the dispenser of holy water, in short, with all that ecclesiastical militia called in Paris the "lower clergy," to whom the faithful are in the habit of giving small donations. Madame Cantinet thus knew Schmucke as well as he knew her. This dame Cantinet was afflicted with two troubles which enabled Fraisier to make of her a blind and involuntary instrument. The young Cantinet, passionately fond of the theatre, had re- fused to follow a church career in which he might have become a verger, and had made his appearance among the supernumeraries of the ballet at the 422 THE POOR RELATIONS Cirque-Olympique; he led a scatterbrained life, which broke his mother's heart, and often emptied her purse by his forced loans. Then Cantinet himself, given over to laziness and liquor, had been driven out of business by these two vices. Far from correcting them, this unfortunate found fresh opportunities for his two passions in his pres- ent functions ; he did no work and he drank with the hackmen of the wedding parties, with the offi- cials of funerals, with the poor whom the Cure re- lieved, so that by twelve o'clock in the day his face was usually cardinal-colored. Madame Cantinet was herself doomed to poverty in her old days, after having, as she said, brought twelve thousand francs of dot to her husband. The history of her misfortune, a hundred times related to Doctor Poulain, suggested to him the idea of using her to facilitate the placing with Pons and Schmucke of Madame Sauvage as cook and general servant. To present Madame Sauvage herself was impossi- ble; for the distrust of the two Nut-crackers was fully roused, and the refusal to open the door to Mademoiselle Re'monencq had sufficiently enlight- ened Fraisier on this subject But it seemed evi- dent to the two friends that the pious old musicians would accept blindly anyone proposed to them by the Abbe Duplanty. Madame Cantinet, according to their plan, should be accompanied by Madame Sauvage ; and Fraisier's servant once there would be as good as Fraisier himself. When the Abbe Duplanty came down he was COUSIN PONS 423 detained a moment in the porte-cochere by the con- course of Cibot's friends, who were testifying their interest in the oldest and most esteemed concierge of the quarter. Doctor Poulain saluted the Abbe Duplanty, took him apart and said to him : "I am going up to see that poor Monsieur Rons, who may still recover; it is a question of deciding to submit to the operation of removing the stones which have formed in the vesicle of the gall ; they can be felt, they have produced the inflammation which will cause death; but perhaps there may be still time to arrest it. You should indeed make use of your influence over your penitent in persuading him to submit to this operation; I will answer for his life, provided that nothing unfortunate inter- venes during the operation." "As soon as I have carried the sacred vessels to the church I will return," said the Abbe Duplanty, "for Monsieur Schmucke is in a condition which requires religious support" "I have just learned that he is alone," said Doctor Poulain. "This good German had this morning a little altercation with Madame Cibot, who has been for ten years the housekeeper of those two gentle- men, and they have quarreled, temporarily doubt- less ; but he must not be left alone without help, in the circumstances in which he finds himself. It is a work of charity to look after him. Here, Canti- net," said the doctor, calling up the beadle, "ask your wife if she is willing to nurse Monsieur Rons and 424 THE POOR RELATIONS look after the housekeeping of Monsieur Schmucke for a few days in Madame Cibot's place, who in fact, even without this quarrel, would have had to find a substitute. Madame Cantinet is a trust- worthy woman," said the doctor to the Abbe Duplanty. "You could not choose a better one," answered the good priest, "for she has the confidence of the estab- lishment, for whom she looks after the letting of the chairs." A few moments later, Doctor Poulain was watch- ing at the bedside of Pons,the progress of his disso- lution, while Schmucke vainly implored his friend to submit to the operation. The old musician re- plied to the despairing entreaties of the poor Ger- man only by negative signs of thehead,occasionally making impatient gestures. Finally the dying man assembled all his strength, cast at Schmucke a terrible glance and said to him : "Let me die in peace, will you! " Schmucke was on the point of expiring of grief himself; but he took the hand of Rons, kissed it softly and held it between his own hands, endeav- oring to transfuse once more his own life into his friend. At that moment Doctor Poulain heard the bell sound and went and opened the door to the Abbe Duplanty. "Our poor patient," said Poulain, "commences his last agony. He will expire in a few hours; you will doubtless send a priest to watch with him this night But it is time to give Madame Cantinet and a COUSIN PONS servant to Monsieur Schmucke, who is incapable of attending to anything. I fear for his reason, and there is property here which should be guarded by most trustworthy people." The Abbe Duplanty, a good and worthy priest, without suspicion or malice, was struck by the jus- tice of Doctor Poulain's observations ; he had a firm faith, moreover, in the physician of the quarter; he accordingly 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 own as if the dying man were fall- ing over a precipice and sought to fasten upon some- thing that might save him. But, as is well known, those about to die are often the prey of an halluci- nation which impels them to lay hold of everything around them, like people in a conflagration anx- ious to save their most valuable objects, and Pons suddenly released Schmucke's hand to grasp the bed- clothes and draw them around his body with a hor- rible and significant movement of avarice and of haste. "What will become of you, alone with your dead friend?" said the good priest to the German, who then came to him. "You are without Madame Cibot" ' ' She ees a monsder who'has gilled Bons !" said he. "But you must have some one with you," inter- posed Doctor Poulain, "for the corpse will have to be watched to-night" 426 THE POOR RELATIONS "I vill vatch, I vill bray to Gott, " answered the innocent German. "But you must eat Who in the meantime will cook for you," said the doctor. "Zorrow has daken avay mine abbedide," replied Schmucke naively. "But," said Poulain, "the decease must be de- clared by witnesses, the body must be unclothed, put in a winding-sheet and sewed up in it, the funeral must be ordered at the Pompes Funebres, the nurse who takes charge of the corpse and the priest who watches, must have their meals. Can you do that yourself all alone ? People cannot die like dogs in the capital of the civilized world." Schmucke opened a pair of terrified eyes and was seized with a momentary attack of madness. "Put Bons shall not die, I vill save heem. " "You cannot last much longer without taking a little sleep, and then who will take your place? For Monsieur Pons must be looked after, and' must have his drink and his medicines." "Ah, dat is drue! " said the German. "Well," remarked the Abbe Duplanty, "I think of giving you Madame Cantinet, an honest and worthy woman. " These details of the social duties towards his dead friend so overcame Schmucke that he longed to die with Pons. "He is a child!" said Doctor Poulain to the Abbe Duplanty. "A jhild!" repeated Schmucke mechanically. COUSIN PONS 427 "Come," said the vicar, "I will go and speak to Madame Cantinet and send her to you." "Don't give yourself the 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 last agony he receives the final blows, he endeavors to strike back and resists. Pons was at this supreme moment, he uttered groans mingled with cries. At that moment Schmucke, the Abbe Duplanty and Poulain ran to his side. Suddenly Pons, receiving in his vitality the last stab which severs the bond which unites soul and body, recovered for a few moments the perfect quietude which follows the death struggle. He came to himself, the serenity of death upon his face, and he looked at those around him with an ex- pression that was almost a smile. "Ah, doctor, I have suffered much; but you are right, I am better now. Thanks, my good abbe ; I was missing Schmucke." "Schmucke has not eaten anything since yester- day evening, and it is now four o'clock! You have no longer anyone to look after you and it would be dangerous to recall Madame Cibot " "She is capable of anything," said Pons, mani- festing all his horror at the very name of the Cibot. "That is true, Schmucke needs some honest person to look after him." "The Abbe Duplanty and I," said Poulain, "have been thinking about you both." 428 THE POOR RELATIONS "I thank you," said Pons, "I did not reflect " "He suggests to you Madame Cantinet " "Who rents the chairs! " cried Pons. "Yes, she is an excellent creature." "She does not like Madame Cibot and she will take good care of M. Schmucke. " "Send her to me, my good Monsieur Duplanty, she and her husband, then I shall be easy. Nothing will be stolen here then. " Schmucke had again taken the hand of Pons and held it, joyfully believing that health had come back to him. "Let us go, Monsieur 1'Abbe," said the doctor. "I will send Madame Cantinet at once. I know her ; it is probable she will not find Monsieur Pons living." THE DEATH OF PONS At the moment when the two women brought by Doctor Poulain presented tJicmselves, Pons had just rendered his last sigh, ^vithout Schmucke having perceived it. The German still held in his hands the hand of his friend, out of which the warmth u