Works of Honore De Balzac, page 749
“Buy shares in the Orleans Railway,” said he; “they are thirty francs below par, you will double your capital in three years. They will give you scraps of paper, which you keep safe in a portfolio.”
“Stay here, M. Magus. I will go and fetch the man of business who acts for M. Pons’ family. He wants to know how much you will give him for the whole bag of tricks upstairs. I will go for him now.”
“If only she were a widow!” said Remonencq when she was gone. “She would just suit me; she will have plenty of money now — ”
“Especially if she puts her money into the Orleans Railway; she will double her capital in two years’ time. I have put all my poor little savings into it,” added the Jew, “for my daughter’s portion. — Come, let us take a turn on the boulevard until this lawyer arrives.”
“Cibot is very bad as it is,” continued Remonencq; “if it should please God to take him to Himself, I should have a famous wife to keep a shop; I could set up on a large scale — ”
“Good-day, M. Fraisier,” La Cibot began in an ingratiating tone as she entered her legal adviser’s office. “Why, what is this that your porter has been telling me? are you going to move?”
“Yes, my dear Mme. Cibot. I am taking the first floor above Dr. Poulain, and trying to borrow two or three thousand francs so as to furnish the place properly; it is very nice, upon my word, the landlord has just papered and painted it. I am acting, as I told you, in President de Marville’s interests and yours.... I am not a solicitor now; I mean to have my name entered on the roll of barristers, and I must be well lodged. A barrister in Paris cannot have his name on the rolls unless he has decent furniture and books and the like. I am a doctor of law, I have kept my terms, and have powerful interest already.... Well, how are we getting on?”
“Perhaps you would accept my savings,” said La Cibot. “I have put them in a savings bank. I have not much, only three thousand francs, the fruits of twenty-five years of stinting and scraping. You might give me a bill of exchange, as Remonencq says; for I am ignorant myself, I only know what they tell me.”
“No. It is against the rules of the guild for a barrister (avocat) to put his name to a bill. I will give you a receipt, bearing interest at five per cent per annum, on the understanding that if I make an income of twelve hundred francs for you out of old Pons’ estate you will cancel it.”
La Cibot, caught in the trap, uttered not a word.
“Silence gives consent,” Fraisier continued. “Let me have it to-morrow morning.”
“Oh! I am quite willing to pay fees in advance,” said La Cibot; “it is one way of making sure of my money.”
Fraisier nodded. “How are you getting on?” he repeated. “I saw Poulain yesterday; you are hurrying your invalid along, it seems.... One more scene such as yesterday’s, and gall-stones will form. Be gentle with him, my dear Mme. Cibot, do not lay up remorse for yourself. Life is not too long.”
“Just let me alone with your remorse! Are you going to talk about the guillotine again? M. Pons is a contrairy old thing. You don’t know him. It is he that bothers me. There is not a more cross-grained man alive; his relations are in the right of it, he is sly, revengeful, and contrairy.... M. Magus has come, as I told you, and is waiting to see you.”
“Right! I will be there as soon as you. Your income depends upon the price the collection will fetch. If it brings in eight hundred thousand francs, you shall have fifteen hundred francs a year. It is a fortune.”
“Very well. I will tell them to value the things on their consciences.”
An hour later, Pons was fast asleep. The doctor had ordered a soothing draught, which Schmucke administered, all unconscious that La Cibot had doubled the dose. Fraisier, Remonencq, and Magus, three gallows-birds, were examining the seventeen hundred different objects which formed the old musician’s collection one by one.
Schmucke had gone to bed. The three kites, drawn by the scent of a corpse, were masters of the field.
“Make no noise,” said La Cibot whenever Magus went into ecstasies or explained the value of some work of art to Remonencq. The dying man slept on in the neighboring room, while greed in four different forms appraised the treasures that he must leave behind, and waited impatiently for him to die — a sight to wring the heart.
Three hours went by before they had finished the salon.
“On an average,” said the grimy old Jew, “everything here is worth a thousand francs.”
“Seventeen hundred thousand francs!” exclaimed Fraisier in bewilderment.
“Not to me,” Magus answered promptly, and his eyes grew dull. “I would not give more than a hundred thousand francs myself for the collection. You cannot tell how long you may keep a thing on hand. ... There are masterpieces that wait ten years for a buyer, and meanwhile the purchase money is doubled by compound interest. Still, I should pay cash.”
“There is stained glass in the other room, as well as enamels and miniatures and gold and silver snuff-boxes,” put in Remonencq.
“Can they be seen?” inquired Fraisier.
“I’ll see if he is sound asleep,” replied La Cibot. She made a sign, and the three birds of prey came in.
“There are masterpieces yonder!” said Magus, indicating the salon, every bristle of his white beard twitching as he spoke. “But the riches are here! And what riches! Kings have nothing more glorious in royal treasuries.”
Remonencq’s eyes lighted up till they glowed like carbuncles, at the sight of the gold snuff-boxes. Fraisier, cool and calm as a serpent, or some snake-creature with the power of rising erect, stood with his viper head stretched out, in such an attitude as a painter would choose for Mephistopheles. The three covetous beings, thirsting for gold as devils thirst for the dew of heaven, looked simultaneously, as it chanced, at the owner of all this wealth. Some nightmare troubled Pons; he stirred, and suddenly, under the influence of those diabolical glances, he opened his eyes with a shrill cry.
“Thieves!... There they are!... Help! Murder! Help!”
The nightmare was evidently still upon him, for he sat up in bed, staring before him with blank, wide-open eyes, and had not the power to move.
Elie Magus and Remonencq made for the door, but a word glued them to the spot.
“Magus here!... I am betrayed!”
Instinctively the sick man had known that his beloved pictures were in danger, a thought that touched him at least as closely as any dread for himself, and he awoke. Fraisier meanwhile did not stir.
“Mme. Cibot! who is that gentleman?” cried Pons, shivering at the sight.
“Goodness me! how could I put him out of the door?” she inquired, with a wink and gesture for Fraisier’s benefit. “This gentleman came just a minute ago, from your family.”
Fraisier could not conceal his admiration for La Cibot.
“Yes, sir,” he said, “I have come on behalf of Mme. la Presidente de Marville, her husband, and her daughter, to express their regret. They learned quite by accident that you are ill, and they would like to nurse you themselves. They want you to go to Marville and get well there. Mme. la Vicomtesse Popinot, the little Cecile that you love so much, will be your nurse. She took your part with her mother. She convinced Mme. de Marville that she had made a mistake.”
“So my next-of-kin have sent you to me, have they?” Pons exclaimed indignantly, “and sent the best judge and expert in all Paris with you to show you the way? Oh! a nice commission!” he cried, bursting into wild laughter. “You have come to value my pictures and curiosities, my snuff-boxes and miniatures!... Make your valuation. You have a man there who understands everything, and more — he can buy everything, for he is a millionaire ten times over.... My dear relatives will not have long to wait,” he added, with bitter irony, “they have choked the last breath out of me.... Ah! Mme. Cibot, you said you were a mother to me, and you bring dealers into the house, and my competitor and the Camusots, while I am asleep!... Get out, all of you! — ”
The unhappy man was beside himself with anger and fear; he rose from the bed and stood upright, a gaunt, wasted figure.
“Take my arm, sir,” said La Cibot, rushing to the rescue, lest Pons should fall. “Pray calm yourself, the gentlemen are gone.”
“I want to see the salon....” said the death-stricken man. La Cibot made a sign to the three ravens to take flight. Then she caught up Pons as if he had been a feather, and put him in bed again, in spite of his cries. When she saw that he was quite helpless and exhausted, she went to shut the door on the staircase. The three who had done Pons to death were still on the landing; La Cibot told them to wait. She heard Fraisier say to Magus:
“Let me have it in writing, and sign it, both of you. Undertake to pay nine hundred thousand francs in cash for M. Pons’ collection, and we will see about putting you in the way of making a handsome profit.”
With that he said something to La Cibot in a voice so low that the others could not catch it, and went down after the two dealers to the porter’s room.
“Have they gone, Mme. Cibot?” asked the unhappy Pons, when she came back again.
“Gone?... who?” asked she.
“Those men.”
“What men? There, now, you have seen men,” said she. “You have just had a raving fit; if it hadn’t been for me you would have gone out the window, and now you are still talking of men in the room. Is it always to be like this?”
“What! was there not a gentleman here just now, saying that my relatives had sent him?”
“Will you still stand me out?” said she. “Upon my word, do you know where you ought to be sent? — To the asylum at Charenton. You see men — ”
“Elie Magus, Remonencq, and — ”
“Oh! as for Remonencq, you may have seen him, for he came up to tell me that my poor Cibot is so bad that I must clear out of this and come down. My Cibot comes first, you see. When my husband is ill, I can think of nobody else. Try to keep quiet and sleep for a couple of hours; I have sent for Dr. Poulain, and I will come up with him.... Take a drink and be good — ”
“Then was there no one in the room just now, when I waked?...”
“No one,” said she. “You must have seen M. Remonencq in one of your looking-glasses.”
“You are right, Mme. Cibot,” said Pons, meek as a lamb.
“Well, now you are sensible again.... Good-bye, my cherub; keep quiet, I shall be back again in a minute.”
When Pons heard the outer door close upon her, he summoned up all his remaining strength to rise.
“They are cheating me,” he muttered to himself, “they are robbing me! Schmucke is a child that would let them tie him up in a sack.”
The terrible scene had seemed so real, it could not be a dream, he thought; a desire to throw light upon the puzzle excited him; he managed to reach the door, opened it after many efforts, and stood on the threshold of his salon. There they were — his dear pictures, his statues, his Florentine bronzes, his porcelain; the sight of them revived him. The old collector walked in his dressing-gown along the narrow spaces between the credence-tables and the sideboards that lined the wall; his feet bare, his head on fire. His first glance of ownership told him that everything was there; he turned to go back to bed again, when he noticed that a Greuze portrait looked out of the frame that had held Sebastian del Piombo’s Templar. Suspicion flashed across his brain, making his dark thoughts apparent to him, as a flash of lightning marks the outlines of the cloud-bars on a stormy sky. He looked round for the eight capital pictures of the collection; each one of them was replaced by another. A dark film suddenly overspread his eyes; his strength failed him; he fell fainting upon the polished floor.
So heavy was the swoon, that for two hours he lay as he fell, till Schmucke awoke and went to see his friend, and found him lying unconscious in the salon. With endless pains Schmucke raised the half-dead body and laid it on the bed; but when he came to question the death-stricken man, and saw the look in the dull eyes and heard the vague, inarticulate words, the good German, so far from losing his head, rose to the very heroism of friendship. Man and child as he was, with the pressure of despair came the inspiration of a mother’s tenderness, a woman’s love. He warmed towels (he found towels!), he wrapped them about Pons’ hands, he laid them over the pit of the stomach; he took the cold, moist forehead in his hands, he summoned back life with a might of will worthy of Apollonius of Tyana, laying kisses on his friend’s eyelids like some Mary bending over the dead Christ, in a pieta carved in bas-relief by some great Italian sculptor. The divine effort, the outpouring of one life into another, the work of mother and of lover, was crowned with success. In half an hour the warmth revived Pons; he became himself again, the hues of life returned to his eyes, suspended faculties gradually resumed their play under the influence of artificial heat; Schmucke gave him balm-water with a little wine in it; the spirit of life spread through the body; intelligence lighted up the forehead so short a while ago insensible as a stone; and Pons knew that he had been brought back to life, by what sacred devotion, what might of friendship!
“But for you, I should die,” he said, and as he spoke he felt the good German’s tears falling on his face. Schmucke was laughing and crying at once.
Poor Schmucke! he had waited for those words with a frenzy of hope as costly as the frenzy of despair; and now his strength utterly failed him, he collapsed like a rent balloon. It was his turn to fall; he sank into the easy-chair, clasped his hands, and thanked God in fervent prayer. For him a miracle had just been wrought. He put no belief in the efficacy of the prayer of his deeds; the miracle had been wrought by God in direct answer to his cry. And yet that miracle was a natural effect, such as medical science often records.
A sick man, surrounded by those who love him, nursed by those who wish earnestly that he should live, will recover (other things being equal), when another patient tended by hirelings will die. Doctors decline to see unconscious magnetism in this phenomenon; for them it is the result of intelligent nursing, of exact obedience to their orders; but many a mother knows the virtue of such ardent projection of strong, unceasing prayer.
“My good Schmucke — ”
“Say nodings; I shall hear you mit mein heart... rest, rest!” said Schmucke, smiling at him.
“Poor friend, noble creature, child of God, living in God!... The one being that has loved me....” The words came out with pauses between them; there was a new note, a something never heard before, in Pons’ voice. All the soul, so soon to take flight, found utterance in the words that filled Schmucke with happiness almost like a lover’s rapture.
“Yes, yes. I shall be shtrong as a lion. I shall vork for two!”
“Listen, my good, my faithful, adorable friend. Let me speak, I have not much time left. I am a dead man. I cannot recover from these repeated shocks.”
Schmucke was crying like a child.
“Just listen,” continued Pons, “and cry afterwards. As a Christian, you must submit. I have been robbed. It is La Cibot’s doing.... I ought to open your eyes before I go; you know nothing of life.... Somebody has taken away eight of the pictures, and they were worth a great deal of money.”
“Vorgif me — I sold dem.”
“You sold them?”
“Yes, I,” said poor Schmucke. “Dey summoned us to der court — ”
“Summoned?.... Who summoned us?”
“Wait,” said Schmucke. He went for the bit of stamped-paper left by the bailiff, and gave it to Pons. Pons read the scrawl through with close attention, then he let the paper drop and lay quite silent for a while. A close observer of the work of men’s hands, unheedful so far of the workings of the brain, Pons finally counted out the threads of the plot woven about him by La Cibot. The artist’s fire, the intellect that won the Roman scholarship — all his youth came back to him for a little.
“My good Schmucke,” he said at last, “you must do as I tell you, and obey like a soldier. Listen! go downstairs into the lodge and tell that abominable woman that I should like to see the person sent to me by my cousin the President; and that unless he comes, I shall leave my collection to the Musee. Say that a will is in question.”
Schmucke went on his errand; but at the first word, La Cibot answered by a smile.
“My good M. Schmucke, our dear invalid has had a delirious fit; he thought that there were men in the room. On my word, as an honest woman, no one has come from the family.”
Schmucke went back with his answer, which he repeated word for word.
“She is cleverer, more astute and cunning and wily, than I thought,” said Pons with a smile. “She lies even in her room. Imagine it! This morning she brought a Jew here, Elie Magus by name, and Remonencq, and a third whom I do not know, more terrific than the other two put together. She meant to make a valuation while I was asleep; I happened to wake, and saw them all three, estimating the worth of my snuff-boxes. The stranger said, indeed, that the Camusots had sent him here; I spoke to him.... That shameless woman stood me out that I was dreaming!... My good Schmucke, it was not a dream. I heard the man perfectly plainly; he spoke to me.... The two dealers took fright and made for the door.... I thought that La Cibot would contradict herself — the experiment failed.... I will lay another snare, and trap the wretched woman.... Poor Schmucke, you think that La Cibot is an angel; and for this month past she has been killing me by inches to gain her covetous ends. I would not believe that a woman who served us faithfully for years could be so wicked. That doubt has been my ruin.... How much did the eight pictures fetch?”
“Vife tausend vrancs.”
“Good heavens! they were worth twenty times as much!” cried Pons; “the gems of the collection! I have not time now to institute proceedings; and if I did, you would figure in court as the dupe of those rascals. ... A lawsuit would be the death of you. You do not know what justice means — a court of justice is a sink of iniquity.... At the sight of such horrors, a soul like yours would give way. And besides, you will have enough. The pictures cost me forty thousand francs. I have had them for thirty-six years.... Oh, we have been robbed with surprising dexterity. I am on the brink of the grave, I care for nothing now but thee — for thee, the best soul under the sun....
