Chapter 47

"Poor man! who can have vexed him? There isn't nobody like him on earth except his friend M. Schmucke. I will find out what is the matter, and I will undertake to give them that upset my gentleman a hauling over the coals--"

"Look here, my dear Mme. Cibot," said the doctor as they stood in the gateway, "one of the principal symptoms of his complaint is great irritability; and as it is hardly to be supposed that he can afford a nurse, the task of nursing him will fall to you. So--"

"Are you talking of Mouchieu Ponsh?" asked the marine store-dealer. He was sitting smoking on the curb-post in the gateway, and now he rose to join in the conversation.

"Yes, Daddy Remonencq."

"All right," said Remonencq, "ash to moneysh, he ish better off than Mouchieu Monishtrol and the big men in the curioshity line. I know enough in the art line to tell you thish--the dear man has treasursh!" he spoke with a broad Auvergne dialect.

"Look here, I thought you were laughing at me the other day when my gentlemen were out and I showed you the old rubbish upstairs," said Mme. Cibot.

In Paris, where walls have ears, where doors have tongues, and window bars have eyes, there are few things more dangerous than the practice of standing to chat in a gateway. Partings are like postscripts to a letter--indiscreet utterances that do as much mischief to the speaker as to those who overhear them. A single instance will be sufficient as a parallel to an event in this history.

In the time of the Empire, when men paid considerable attention to their hair, one of the first coiffeurs of the day came out of a house where he had just been dressing a pretty woman's head. This artist in question enjoyed the custom of all the lower floor inmates of the house; and among these, there flourished an elderly bachelor guarded by a housekeeper who detested her master's next-of-kin. The _ci-devant_ young man, falling seriously ill, the most famous of doctors of the day (they were not as yet styled the "princes of science") had been called in to consult upon his case; and it so chanced that the learned gentlemen were taking leave of one another in the gateway just as the hairdresser came out. They were talking as doctors usually talk among themselves when the farce of a consultation is over. "He is a dead man," quoth Dr. Haudry.--"He had not a month to live," added Desplein, "unless a miracle takes place."--These were the words overheard by the hairdresser.

Like all hairdressers, he kept up a good understanding with his customers' servants. Prodigious greed sent the man upstairs again; he mounted to the _ci-devant_ young man's apartment, and promised the servant-mistress a tolerably handsome commission to persuade her master to sink a large portion of his money in an annuity. The dying bachelor, fifty-six by count of years, and twice as old as his age by reason of amorous campaigns, owned, among other property, a splendid house in the Rue de Richelieu, worth at that time about two hundred and fifty thousand francs. It was this house that the hairdresser coveted; and on agreement to pay an annuity of thirty thousand francs so long as the bachelor lived, it passed into his hands. This happened in 1806. And in this year 1846 the hairdresser is still paying that annuity. He has retired from business, he is seventy years old; the _ci-devant_ young man is in his dotage; and as he has married his Mme. Evrard, he may last for a long while yet. As the hairdresser gave the woman thirty thousand francs, his bit of real estate has cost him, first and last, more than a million, and the house at this day is worth eight or nine hundred thousand francs.

Like the hairdresser, Remonencq the Auvergnat had overheard Brunner's parting remark in the gateway on the day of Cecile's first interview with that phoenix of eligible men. Remonencq at once longed to gain a sight of Pons' museum; and as he lived on good terms with his neighbors the Cibots, it was not very long before the opportunity came one day when the friends were out. The sight of such treasures dazzled him; he saw a "good haul," in dealers' phrase, which being interpreted means a chance to steal a fortune. He had been meditating this for five or six days.

"I am sho far from joking," he said, in reply to Mme. Cibot's remark, "that we will talk the thing over; and if the good shentleman will take an annuity, of fifty thousand francsh, I will shtand a hamper of wine, if--"

"Fifty thousand francs!" interrupted the doctor; "what are you thinking about? Why, if the good man is so well off as that, with me in attendance, and Mme. Cibot to nurse him, he may get better--for liver complaint is a disease that attacks strong constitutions."

"Fifty, did I shay? Why, a shentleman here, on your very doorshtep, offered him sheven hundred thoushand francsh, shimply for the pictursh, _fouchtra_!"

While Remonencq made this announcement, Mme. Cibot was looking at Dr. Poulain. There was a strange expression in her eyes; the devil might have kindled that sinister glitter in their tawny depths.

"Oh, come! we must not pay any attention to such idle tales," said the doctor, well pleased, however, to find that his patient could afford to pay for his visits.

"If my dear Mme. Cibot, here, would let me come and bring an ekshpert (shinsh the shentleman upshtairs ish in bed), I will shertainly find the money in a couple of hoursh, even if sheven hundred thousand francsh ish in queshtion--"

"All right, my friend," said the doctor. "Now, Mme. Cibot, be careful never to contradict the invalid. You must be prepared to be very patient with him, for he will find everything irritating and wearisome, even your services; nothing will please him; you must expect grumbling--"

"He will be uncommonly hard to please," said La Cibot.

"Look here, mind what I tell you," the doctor said in a tone of authority, "M. Pons' life is in the hands of those that nurse him; I shall come perhaps twice a day. I shall take him first on my round."

The doctor's profound indifference to the fate of a poor patient had suddenly given place to a most tender solicitude when he saw that the speculator was serious, and that there was a possible fortune in question.

"He will be nursed like a king," said Madame Cibot, forcing up enthusiasm. She waited till the doctor turned the corner into the Rue Charlot; then she fell to talking again with the dealer in old iron. Remonencq had finished smoking his pipe, and stood in the doorway of his shop, leaning against the frame; he had purposely taken this position; he meant the portress to come to him.

The shop had once been a cafe. Nothing had been changed there since the Auvergnat discovered it and took over the lease; you could still read "Cafe de Normandie" on the strip left above the windows in all modern shops. Remonencq had found somebody, probably a housepainter's apprentice, who did the work for nothing, to paint another inscription in the remaining space below--"REMONENCQ," it ran, "DEALER IN MARINE STORES, FURNITURE BOUGHT"--painted in small black letters. All the mirrors, tables, seats, shelves, and fittings of the Cafe de Normandie had been sold, as might have been expected, before Remonencq took possession of the shop as it stood, paying a yearly rent of six hundred francs for the place, with a back shop, a kitchen, and a single room above, where the head-waiter used to sleep, for the house belonging to the Cafe de Normandie was let separately. Of the former splendor of the cafe, nothing now remained save the plain light green paper on the walls, and the strong iron bolts and bars of the shop-front.

When Remonencq came hither in 1831, after the Revolution of July, he began by displaying a selection of broken doorbells, cracked plates, old iron, and the obsolete scales and weights abolished by a Government which alone fails to carry out its own regulations, for pence and half pence of the time of Louis XVI. are still in circulation. After a time this Auvergnat, a match for five ordinary Auvergnats, bought up old saucepans and kettles, old picture-frames, old copper, and chipped china. Gradually, as the shop was emptied and filled, the quality of the stock-in-trade improved, like Nicolet's farces. Remonencq persisted in an unfailing and prodigiously profitable martingale, a "system" which any philosophical idler may study as he watches the increasing value of the stock kept by this intelligent class of trader. Picture-frames and copper succeed to tin-ware, argand lamps, and damaged crockery; china marks the next transition; and after no long tarriance in the "omnium gatherum" stage, the shop becomes a museum. Some day or other the dusty windows are cleaned, the interior is restored, the Auvergnat relinquishes velveteen and jackets for a great-coat, and there he sits like a dragon guarding his treasure, surrounded by masterpieces! He is a cunning connoisseur by this time; he has increased his capital tenfold; he is not to be cheated; he knows the tricks of the trade. The monster among his treasures looks like some old hag among a score of young girls that she offers to the public. Beauty and miracles of art are alike indifferent to him; subtle and dense as he is, he has a keen eye to profits, he talks roughly to those who know less than he does; he has learned to act a part, he pretends to love his pictures, or again he lets you know the price he himself gave for the things, he offers to let you see the memoranda of the sale. He is a Proteus; in one hour he can be Jocrisse, Janot, _Queue-rouge_, Mondor, Hapagon, or Nicodeme.

The third year found armor, and old pictures, and some tolerably fine clocks in Remonencq's shop. He sent for his sister, and La Remonencq came on foot all the way from Auvergne to take charge of the shop while her brother was away. A big and very ugly woman, dressed like a Japanese idol, a half-idiotic creature with a vague, staring gaze she would not bate a centime of the prices fixed by her brother. In the intervals of business she did the work of the house, and solved the apparently insoluble problem--how to live on "the mists of the Seine." The Remonencqs' diet consisted of bread and herrings, with the outside leaves of lettuce or vegetable refuse selected from the heaps deposited in the kennel before the doors of eating-houses. The two between them did not spend more than fivepence a day on food (bread included), and La Remonencq earned the money by sewing or spinning.

Remonencq came to Paris in the first instance to work as an errand-boy. Between the years 1825 and 1831 he ran errands for dealers in curiosities in the Boulevard Beaumarchais or coppersmiths in the Rue de Lappe. It is the usual start in life in his line of business. Jews, Normans, Auvergnats, and Savoyards, those four different races of men all have the same instincts, and make their fortunes in the same way; they spend nothing, make small profits, and let them accumulate at compound interest. Such is their trading charter, and _that_ charter is no delusion.

Remonencq at this moment had made it up with his old master Monistrol; he did business with wholesale dealers, he was a _chineur_ (the technical word), plying his trade in the _banlieue_, which, as everybody knows, extends for some forty leagues round Paris.

After fourteen years of business, he had sixty thousand francs in hand and a well-stocked shop. He lived in the Rue de Normandie because the rent was low, but casual customers were scarce, most of his goods were sold to other dealers, and he was content with moderate gains. All his business transactions were carried on in the Auvergue dialect or _charabia_, as people call it.

Remonencq cherished a dream! He wished to establish himself on a boulevard, to be a rich dealer in curiosities, and do a direct trade with amateurs some day. And, indeed, within him there was a formidable man of business. His countenance was the more inscrutable because it was glazed over by a deposit of dust and particles of metal glued together by the sweat of his brow; for he did everything himself, and the use and wont of bodily labor had given him something of the stoical impassibility of the old soldiers of 1799.

In personal appearance Remonencq was short and thin; his little eyes were set in his head in porcine fashion; a Jew's slyness and concentrated greed looked out of those dull blue circles, though in his case the false humility that masks the Hebrew's unfathomed contempt for the Gentile was lacking.

The relations between the Cibots and the Remonencqs were those of benefactors and recipients. Mme. Cibot, convinced that the Auvergnats were wretchedly poor, used to let them have the remainder of "her gentlemen's" dinners at ridiculous prices. The Remonencqs would buy a pound of broken bread, crusts and crumbs, for a farthing, a porringer-full of cold potatoes for something less, and other scraps in proportion. Remonencq shrewdly allowed them to believe that he was not in business on his own account, he worked for Monistrol, the rich shopkeepers preyed upon him, he said, and the Cibots felt sincerely sorry for Remonencq. The velveteen jacket, waistcoat, and trousers, particularly affected by Auvergnats, were covered with patches of Cibot's making, and not a penny had the little tailor charged for repairs which kept the three garments together after eleven years of wear.

Thus we see that all Jews are not in Israel.

"You are not laughing at me, Remonencq, are you?" asked the portress. "Is it possible that M. Pons has such a fortune, living as he does? There is not a hundred francs in the place--"

"Amateursh are all like that," Remonencq remarked sententiously.

"Then do you think that my gentleman has worth of seven hundred thousand francs, eh?--"

"In pictures alone," continued Remonencq (it is needless, for the sake of clearness in the story, to give any further specimens of his frightful dialect). "If he would take fifty thousand francs for one up there that I know of, I would find the money if I had to hang myself. Do you remember those little frames full of enameled copper on crimson velvet, hanging among the portraits? . . . Well, those are Petitot's enamels; and there is a cabinet minister as used to be a druggist that will give three thousand francs apiece for them."

La Cibot's eyes opened wide. "There are thirty of them in the pair of frames!" she said.

"Very well, you can judge for yourself how much he is worth."

Mme. Cibot's head was swimming; she wheeled round. In a moment came the thought that she would have a legacy, _she_ would sleep sound on old Pons' will, like the other servant-mistresses whose annuities had aroused such envy in the Marais. Her thoughts flew to some commune in the neighborhood of Paris; she saw herself strutting proudly about her house in the country, looking after her garden and poultry yard, ending her days, served like a queen, along with her poor dear Cibot, who deserved such good fortune, like all angelic creatures whom nobody knows nor appreciates.

Her abrupt, unthinking movement told Remonencq that success was sure. In the _chineur's_ way of business--the _chineur_, be it explained, goes about the country picking up bargains at the expense of the ignorant--in the _chineur's_ way of business, the one real difficulty is the problem of gaining an entrance to a house. No one can imagine the Scapin's roguery, the tricks of a Sganarelle, the wiles of a Dorine by which the _chineur_ contrives to make a footing for himself. These comedies are as good as a play, and founded indeed on the old stock theme of the dishonesty of servants. For thirty francs in money or goods, servants, and especially country servants, will sometimes conclude a bargain on which the _chineur_ makes a profit of a thousand or two thousand francs. If we could but know the history of such and such a service of Sevres porcelain, _pate tendre_, we should find that all the intellect, all the diplomatic subtlety displayed at Munster, Nimeguen, Utrecht, Ryswick, and Vienna was surpassed by the _chineur_. His is the more frank comedy; his methods of action fathom depths of personal interest quite as profound as any that plenipotentiaries can explore in their difficult search for any means of breaking up the best cemented alliances.

"I have set La Cibot nicely on fire," Remonencq told his sister, when she came to take up her position again on the ramshackle chair. "And now," he continued, "I shall go to consult the only man that knows, our Jew, a good sort of Jew that did not ask more than fifteen per cent of us for his money."

Remonencq had read La Cibot's heart. To will is to act with women of her stamp. Let them see the end in view; they will stick at nothing to gain it, and pass from scrupulous honesty to the last degree of scoundrelism in the twinkling of an eye. Honesty, like most dispositions of mind, is divided into two classes--negative and positive. La Cibot's honesty was of the negative order; she and her like are honest until they see their way clear to gain money belonging to somebody else. Positive honesty, the honesty of the bank collector, can wade knee-deep through temptations.

A torrent of evil thoughts invaded La Cibot's heart and brain so soon as Remonencq's diabolical suggestion opened the flood-gates of self-interest. La Cibot climbed, or, to be more accurate, fled up the stairs, opened the door on the landing, and showed a face disguised in false solicitude in the doorway of the room where Pons and Schmucke were bemoaning themselves. As soon as she came in, Schmucke made her a warning sign; for, true friend and sublime German that he was, he too had read the doctor's eyes, and he was afraid that Mme. Cibot might repeat the verdict. Mme. Cibot answered by a shake of the head indicative of deep woe.

"Well, my dear monsieur," asked she, "how are you feeling?" She sat down on the foot of the bed, hands on hips, and fixed her eyes lovingly upon the patient; but what a glitter of metal there was in them, a terrible, tiger-like gleam if any one had watched her.

"I feel very ill," answered poor Pons. "I have not the slightest appetite left.--Oh! the world, the world!" he groaned, squeezing Schmucke's hand. Schmucke was sitting by his bedside, and doubtless the sick man was talking of the causes of his illness.--"I should have done far better to follow your advice, my good Schmucke, and dined here every day, and given up going into this society, that has fallen on me with all its weight, like a tumbril cart crushing an egg! And why?"

"Come, come, don't complain, M. Pons," said La Cibot; "the doctor told me just how it is--"

Schmucke tugged at her gown.--"And you will pull through," she continued, "only we must take great care of you. Be easy, you have a good friend beside you, and without boasting, a woman as will nurse you like a mother nurses her first child. I nursed Cibot round once when Dr. Poulain had given him over; he had the shroud up to his eyes, as the saying is, and they gave him up for dead. Well, well, you have not come to that yet, God be thanked, ill though you may be. Count on me; I would pull you through all by myself, I would! Keep still, don't you fidget like that."

She pulled the coverlet over the patient's hands as she spoke.

"There, sonny! M. Schmucke and I will sit up with you of nights. A prince won't be no better nursed . . . and besides, you needn't refuse yourself nothing that's necessary, you can afford it.--I have just been talking things over with Cibot, for what would he do without me, poor dear?--Well, and I talked him round; we are both so fond of you, that he will let me stop up with you of a night. And that is a good deal to ask of a man like him, for he is as fond of me as ever he was the day we were married. I don't know how it is. It is the lodge, you see; we are always there together! Don't you throw off the things like that!" she cried, making a dash for the bedhead to draw the coverlet over Pons' chest. "If you are not good, and don't do just as Dr. Poulain says--and Dr. Poulain is the image of Providence on earth--I will have no more to do with you. You must do as I tell you--"

"Yes, Montame Zipod, he vill do vat you dell him," put in Schmucke; "he vants to lif for his boor friend Schmucke's sake, I'll pe pound."

"And of all things, don't fidget yourself," continued La Cibot, "for your illness makes you quite bad enough without your making it worse for want of patience. God sends us our troubles, my dear good gentlemen; He punishes us for our sins. Haven't you nothing to reproach yourself with? some poor little bit of a fault or other?"

The invalid shook his head.

"Oh! go on! You were young once, you had your fling, there is some love-child of yours somewhere--cold, and starving, and homeless. . . . What monsters men are! Their love doesn't last only for a day, and then in a jiffy they forget, they don't so much as think of the child at the breast for months. . . . Poor women!"

"But no one has ever loved me except Schmucke and my mother," poor Pons broke in sadly.

"Oh! come, you aren't no saint! You were young in your time, and a fine-looking young fellow you must have been at twenty. I should have fallen in love with you myself, so nice as you are--"

"I always was as ugly as a toad," Pons put in desperately.

"You say that because you are modest; nobody can't say that you aren't modest."

"My dear Mme. Cibot, _no_, I tell you. I always was ugly, and I never was loved in my life."

"You, indeed!" cried the portress. "You want to make me believe at this time of day that you are as innocent as a young maid at your time of life. Tell that to your granny! A musician at a theatre too! Why, if a woman told me that, I wouldn't believe her."

"Montame Zipod, you irritate him!" cried Schmucke, seeing that Pons was writhing under the bedclothes.

"You hold your tongue too! You are a pair of old libertines. If you were ugly, it don't make no difference; there was never so ugly a saucepan-lid but it found a pot to match, as the saying is. There is Cibot, he got one of the handsomest oyster-women in Paris to fall in love with him, and you are infinitely better looking than him! You are a nice pair, you are! Come, now, you have sown your wild oats, and God will punish you for deserting your children, like Abraham--"

Exhausted though he was, the invalid gathered up all his strength to make a vehement gesture of denial.

"Do lie quiet; if you have, it won't prevent you from living as long as Methuselah."

"Then, pray let me be quiet!" groaned Pons. "I have never known what it is to be loved. I have had no child; I am alone in the world."

"Really, eh?" returned the portress. "You are so kind, and that is what women like, you see--it draws them--and it looked to me impossible that when you were in your prime--"

"Take her away," Pons whispered to Schmucke; "she sets my nerves on edge."

"Then there's M. Schmucke, he has children. You old bachelors are not all like that--"

"_I!_" cried Schmucke, springing to his feet, "vy!--"

"Come, then, you have none to come after you either, eh? You both sprung up out of the earth like mushrooms--"

"Look here, komm mit me," said Schmucke. The good German manfully took Mme. Cibot by the waist and carried her off into the next room, in spite of her exclamations.

"At your age, you would not take advantage of a defenceless woman!" cried La Cibot, struggling in his arms.

"Don't make a noise!"

"You too, the better one of the two!" returned La Cibot. "Ah! it is my fault for talking about love to two old men who have never had nothing to do with women. I have roused your passions," cried she, as Schmucke's eyes glittered with wrath. "Help! help! police!"

"You are a stoopid!" said the German. "Look here, vat tid de toctor say?"