Cousin Pons

The poetry of prophecy, the gift of seeing clearly into the future or the past, only belongs to those whose bodies are stricken, to those who die by the destruction of the organs of physical life.  Consumptive patients, for instance, or those who die of gangrene like Louis XIV., of fever like Pons, of a stomach complaint like Mme. de Mortsauf, or of wounds received in the full tide of life like soldiers on the battlefield—­all these may possess this supreme lucidity to the full; their deaths fill us with surprise and wonder.  But many, on the other hand, die of intelligential diseases, as they may be called; of maladies seated in the brain or in that nervous system which acts as a kind of purveyor of thought fuel—­and these die wholly, body and spirit are darkened together.  The former are spirits deserted by the body, realizing for us our ideas of the spirits of Scripture; the latter are bodies untenanted by a spirit.

Too late the virgin nature, the epicure-Cato, the righteous man almost without sin, was discovering the Presidente’s real character—­the sac of gall that did duty for her heart.  He knew the world now that he was about to leave it, and for the past few hours he had risen gaily to his part, like a joyous artist finding a pretext for caricature and laughter in everything.  The last links that bound him to life, the chains of admiration, the strong ties that bind the art lover to Art’s masterpieces, had been snapped that morning.  When Pons knew that La Cibot had robbed him, he bade farewell, like a Christian, to the pomps and vanities of Art, to his collection, to all his old friendships with the makers of so many fair things.  Our forefathers counted the day of death as a Christian festival, and in something of the same spirit Pons’ thoughts turned to the coming end.  In his tender love he tried to protect Schmucke when he should be low in the grave.  It was this father’s thought that led him to fix his choice upon the leading lady of the ballet.  Mlle. Brisetout should help him to baffle surrounding treachery, and those who in all probability would never forgive his innocent universal legatee.

Heloise Brisetout was one of the few natures that remain true in a false position.  She was an opera-girl of the school of Josepha and Jenny Cadine, capable of playing any trick on a paying adorer; yet she was a good comrade, dreading no power on earth, accustomed as she was to see the weak side of the strong and to hold her own with the police at the scarcely idyllic Bal de Mabille and the carnival.

“If she asked for my place for Garangeot, she will think that she owes me a good turn by so much the more,” said Pons to himself.

Thanks to the prevailing confusion in the porter’s lodge, Schmucke succeeded in getting out of the house.  He returned with the utmost speed, fearing to leave Pons too long alone.  M. Trognon reached the house just as Schmucke came in.  Albeit Cibot was dying, his wife came upstairs with the notary, brought him into the bedroom, and withdrew, leaving Schmucke and Pons with M. Trognon; but she left the door ajar, and went no further than the next room.  Providing herself with a little hand-glass of curious workmanship, she took up her station in the doorway, so that she could not only hear but see all that passed at the supreme moment.

“Sir,” said Pons, “I am in the full possession of my faculties, unfortunately for me, for I feel that I am about to die; and doubtless, by the will of God, I shall be spared nothing of the agony of death.  This is M. Schmucke”—­(the notary bowed to M. Schmucke)—­“my one friend on earth,” continued Pons.  “I wish to make him my universal legatee.  Now, tell me how to word the will, so that my friend, who is a German and knows nothing of French law, may succeed to my possessions without any dispute.”

“Anything is liable to be disputed, sir,” said the notary; “that is the drawback of human justice.  But in the matter of wills, there are wills so drafted that they cannot be upset—­”

“In what way?” queried Pons.

“If a will is made in the presence of a notary, and before witnesses who can swear that the testator was in the full possession of his faculties; and if the testator has neither wife nor children, nor father nor mother—­”

“I have none of these; all my affection is centred upon my dear friend Schmucke here.”

The tears overflowed Schmucke’s eyes.

“Then, if you have none but distant relatives, the law leaves you free to dispose of both personalty and real estate as you please, so long as you bequeath them for no unlawful purpose; for you must have come across cases of wills disputed on account of the testator’s eccentricities.  A will made in the presence of a notary is considered to be authentic; for the person’s identity is established, the notary certifies that the testator was sane at the time, and there can be no possible dispute over the signature.—­Still, a holograph will, properly and clearly worded, is quite as safe.”

“I have decided, for reasons of my own, to make a holograph will at your dictation, and to deposit it with my friend here.  Is this possible?”

“Quite possible,” said the notary.  “Will you write?  I will begin to dictate—­”

“Schmucke, bring me my little Boule writing-desk.—­Speak low, sir,” he added; “we may be overheard.”

“Just tell me, first of all, what you intend,” demanded the notary.

Ten minutes later La Cibot saw the notary look over the will, while Schmucke lighted a taper (Pons watching her reflection all the while in a mirror).  She saw the envelope sealed, saw Pons give it to Schmucke, and heard him say that it must be put away in a secret drawer in his bureau.  Then the testator asked for the key, tied it to the corner of his handkerchief, and slipped it under his pillow.

The notary himself, by courtesy, was appointed executor.  To him Pons left a picture of price, such a thing as the law permits a notary to receive.  Trognon went out and came upon Mme. Cibot in the salon.

“Well, sir, did M. Pons remember me?”

“You do not expect a notary to betray secrets confided to him, my dear,” returned M. Trognon.  “I can only tell you this—­there will be many disappointments, and some that are anxious after the money will be foiled.  M. Pons has made a good and very sensible will, a patriotic will, which I highly approve.”

La Cibot’s curiosity, kindled by such words, reached an unimaginable pitch.  She went downstairs and spent the night at Cibot’s bedside, inwardly resolving that Mlle. Remonencq should take her place towards two or three in the morning, when she would go up and have a look at the document.

Mlle. Brisetout’s visit towards half-past ten that night seemed natural enough to La Cibot; but in her terror lest the ballet-girl should mention Gaudissart’s gift of a thousand francs, she went upstairs with her, lavishing polite speeches and flattery as if Mlle. Heloise had been a queen.

“Ah! my dear, you are much nicer here on your own ground than at the theatre,” Heloise remarked.  “I advise you to keep to your employment.”

Heloise was splendidly dressed.  Bixiou, her lover, had brought her in his carriage on the way to an evening party at Mariette’s.  It so fell out that the first-floor lodger, M. Chapoulot, a retired braid manufacturer from the Rue Saint-Denis, returning from the Ambigu-Comique with his wife and daughter, was dazzled by a vision of such a costume and such a charming woman upon their staircase.

“Who is that, Mme. Cibot?” asked Mme. Chapoulot.

“A no-better-than-she-should-be, a light-skirts that you may see half-naked any evening for a couple of francs,” La Cibot answered in an undertone for Mme. Chapoulot’s ear.

“Victorine!” called the braid manufacturer’s wife, “let the lady pass, child.”

The matron’s alarm signal was not lost upon Heloise.

“Your daughter must be more inflammable than tinder, madame, if you are afraid that she will catch fire by touching me,” she said.

M. Chapoulot waited on the landing.  “She is uncommonly handsome off the stage,” he remarked.  Whereupon Mme. Chapoulot pinched him sharply and drove him indoors.

“Here is a second-floor lodger that has a mind to set up for being on the fourth floor,” said Heloise as she continued to climb.

“But mademoiselle is accustomed to going higher and higher.”

“Well, old boy,” said Heloise, entering the bedroom and catching sight of the old musician’s white, wasted face.  “Well, old boy, so we are not very well?  Everybody at the theatre is asking after you; but though one’s heart may be in the right place, every one has his own affairs, you know, and cannot find time to go to see friends.  Gaudissart talks of coming round every day, and every morning the tiresome management gets hold of him.  Still, we are all of us fond of you—­”

“Mme. Cibot,” said the patient, “be so kind as to leave us; we want to talk about the theatre and my post as conductor, with this lady.  Schmucke, will you go to the door with Mme. Cibot?”

At a sign from Pons, Schmucke saw Mme. Cibot out at the door, and drew the bolts.

“Ah, that blackguard of a German!  Is he spoiled, too?” La Cibot said to herself as she heard the significant sounds.  “That is M. Pons’ doing; he taught him those disgusting tricks. . . .  But you shall pay for this, my dears,” she thought as she went down stairs.  “Pooh! if that tight-rope dancer tells him about the thousand francs, I shall say that it is a farce.

She seated herself by Cibot’s pillow.  Cibot complained of a burning sensation in the stomach.  Remonencq had called in and given him a draught while his wife was upstairs.

As soon as Schmucke had dismissed La Cibot, Pons turned to the ballet-girl.

“Dear child, I can trust no one else to find me a notary, an honest man, and send him here to make my will to-morrow morning at half-past nine precisely.  I want to leave all that I have to Schmucke.  If he is persecuted, poor German that he is, I shall reckon upon the notary; the notary must defend him.  And for that reason I must have a wealthy notary, highly thought of, a man above the temptations to which pettifogging lawyers yield.  He must succor my poor friend.  I cannot trust Berthier, Cardot’s successor.  And you know so many people—­”

“Oh!  I have the very man for you,” Heloise broke in; “there is the notary that acts for Florine and the Comtesse du Bruel, Leopold Hannequin, a virtuous man that does not know what a lorette is!  He is a sort of chance-come father—­a good soul that will not let you play ducks and drakes with your earnings; I call him Le Pere aux Rats, because he instils economical notions into the minds of all my friends.  In the first place, my dear fellow, he has a private income of sixty thousand francs; and he is a notary of the real old sort, a notary while he walks or sleeps; his children must be little notaries and notaresses.  He is a heavy, pedantic creature, and that’s the truth; but on his own ground, he is not the man to flinch before any power in creation. . . .  No woman ever got money out of him; he is a fossil pater-familias, his wife worships him, and does not deceive him, although she is a notary’s wife.—­What more do you want? as a notary he has not his match in Paris.  He is in the patriarchal style; not queer and amusing, as Cardot used to be with Malaga; but he will never decamp like little What’s-his-name that lived with Antonia.  So I will send round my man to-morrow morning at eight o’clock. . . .  You may sleep in peace.  And I hope, in the first place, that you will get better, and make charming music for us again; and yet, after all, you see, life is very dreary—­managers chisel you, and kings mizzle and ministers fizzle and rich fold economizzle.—­Artists have nothing left here” (tapping her breast)—­“it is a time to die in.  Good-bye, old boy.”

“Heloise, of all things, I ask you to keep my counsel.”

“It is not a theatre affair,” she said; “it is sacred for an artist.”

“Who is your gentleman, child?”

“M.  Baudoyer, the mayor of your arrondissement, a man as stupid as the late Crevel; Crevel once financed Gaudissart, you know, and a few days ago he died and left me nothing, not so much as a pot of pomatum.  That made me say just now that this age of ours is something sickening.”

“What did he die of?”

“Of his wife.  If he had stayed with me, he would be living now.  Good-bye, dear old boy, I am talking of going off, because I can see that you will be walking about the boulevards in a week or two, hunting up pretty little curiosities again.  You are not ill; I never saw your eyes look so bright.”  And she went, fully convinced that her protege Garangeot would conduct the orchestra for good.

Every door stood ajar as she went downstairs.  Every lodger, on tip-toe, watched the lady of the ballet pass on her way out.  It was quite an event in the house.

Fraisier, like the bulldog that sets his teeth and never lets go, was on the spot.  He stood beside La Cibot when Mlle. Brisetout passed under the gateway and asked for the door to be opened.  Knowing that a will had been made, he had come to see how the land lay, for Maitre Trognon, notary, had refused to say a syllable—­Fraisier’s questions were as fruitless as Mme. Cibot’s.  Naturally the ballet-girl’s visit in extremis was not lost upon Fraisier; he vowed to himself that he would turn it to good account.

“My dear Mme. Cibot,” he began, “now is the critical moment for you.”

“Ah, yes . . . my poor Cibot!” said she.  “When I think that he will not live to enjoy anything I may get—­”

“It is a question of finding out whether M. Pons has left you anything at all; whether your name is mentioned or left out, in fact,” he interrupted.  “I represent the next-of-kin, and to them you must look in any case.  It is a holograph will, and consequently very easy to upset.—­Do you know where our man has put it?”

“In a secret drawer in his bureau, and he has the key of it.  He tied it to a corner of his handkerchief, and put it under his pillow.  I saw it all.”

“Is the will sealed?”

“Yes, alas!”

“It is a criminal offence if you carry off a will and suppress it, but it is only a misdemeanor to look at it; and anyhow, what does it amount to?  A peccadillo, and nobody will see you.  Is your man a heavy sleeper?”

“Yes.  But when you tried to see all the things and value them, he ought to have slept like a top, and yet he woke up.  Still, I will see about it.  I will take M. Schmucke’s place about four o’clock this morning; and if you care to come, you shall have the will in your hands for ten minutes.”

“Good.  I will come up about four o’clock, and I will knock very softly—­”

“Mlle Remonencq will take my place with Cibot.  She will know, and open the door; but tap on the window, so as to rouse nobody in the house.”

“Right,” said Fraisier.  “You will have a light, will you not.  A candle will do.”

At midnight poor Schmucke sat in his easy-chair, watching with a breaking heart that shrinking of the features that comes with death; Pons looked so worn out with the day’s exertions, that death seemed very near.

Presently Pons spoke.  “I have just enough strength, I think, to last till to-morrow night,” he said philosophically.  “To-morrow night the death agony will begin; poor Schmucke!  As soon as the notary and your two friends are gone, go for our good Abbe Duplanty, the curate of Saint-Francois.  Good man, he does not know that I am ill, and I wish to take the holy sacrament to-morrow at noon.”

There was a long pause.

“God so willed it that life has not been as I dreamed,” Pons resumed.  “I should so have loved wife and children and home. . . .  To be loved by a very few in some corner—­that was my whole ambition!  Life is hard for every one; I have seen people who had all that I wanted so much and could not have, and yet they were not happy. . . .  Then at the end of my life, God put untold comfort in my way, when He gave me such a friend. . . .  And one thing I have not to reproach myself with—­that I have not known your worth nor appreciated you, my good Schmucke. . . .  I have loved you with my whole heart, with all the strength of love that is in me. . . .  Do not cry, Schmucke; I shall say no more if you cry and it is so sweet to me to talk of ourselves to you. . . .  If I had listened to you, I should not be dying.  I should have left the world and broken off my habits, and then I should not have been wounded to death.  And now, I want to think of no one but you at the last—­”

“You are missdaken—­”

“Do not contradict me—­listen, dear friend. . . .  You are as guileless and simple as a six-year-old child that has never left its mother; one honors you for it—­it seems to me that God Himself must watch over such as you.  But men are so wicked, that I ought to warn you beforehand . . . and then you will lose your generous trust, your saint-like belief in others, the bloom of a purity of soul that only belongs to genius or to hearts like yours. . . .  In a little while you will see Mme. Cibot, who left the door ajar and watched us closely while M. Trognon was here—­in a little while you will see her come for the will, as she believes it to be. . . .  I expect the worthless creature will do her business this morning when she thinks you are asleep.  Now, mind what I say, and carry out my instructions to the letter. . . .  Are you listening?” asked the dying man.

But Schmucke was overcome with grief, his heart was throbbing painfully, his head fell back on the chair, he seemed to have lost consciousness.

“Yes,” he answered, “I can hear, but it is as if you vere doo huntert baces afay from me. . . .  It seem to me dat I am going town into der grafe mit you,” said Schmucke, crushed with pain.

He went over to the bed, took one of Pons’ hands in both his own, and within himself put up a fervent prayer.

“What is that that you are mumbling in German?”

“I asked Gott dat He vould take us poth togedders to Himself!” Schmucke answered simply when he had finished his prayer.

Pons bent over—­it was a great effort, for he was suffering intolerable pain; but he managed to reach Schmucke, and kissed him on the forehead, pouring out his soul, as it were, in benediction upon a nature that recalled the lamb that lies at the foot of the Throne of God.

“See here, listen, my good Schmucke, you must do as dying people tell you—­”

“I am lisdening.”

“The little door in the recess in your bedroom opens into that closet.”

“Yes, but it is blocked up mit bictures.”

“Clear them away at once, without making too much noise.”

“Yes.”

“Clear a passage on both sides, so that you can pass from your room into mine.—­Now, leave the door ajar.—­When La Cibot comes to take your place (and she is capable of coming an hour earlier than usual), you can go away to bed as if nothing had happened, and look very tired.  Try to look sleepy.  As soon as she settles down into the armchair, go into the closet, draw aside the muslin curtains over the glass door, and watch her. . . .  Do you understand?”

“I oondershtand; you belief dat die pad voman is going to purn der vill.”

“I do not know what she will do; but I am sure of this—­that you will not take her for an angel afterwards.—­And now play for me; improvise and make me happy.  It will divert your thoughts; your gloomy ideas will vanish, and for me the dark hours will be filled with your dreams. . . .”

Schmucke sat down at the piano.  Here he was in his element; and in a few moments, musical inspiration, quickened by the pain with which he was quivering and the consequent irritation that followed came upon the kindly German, and, after his wont, he was caught up and borne above the world.  On one sublime theme after another he executed variations, putting into them sometimes Chopin’s sorrow, Chopin’s Raphael-like perfection; sometimes the stormy Dante’s grandeur of Liszt—­the two musicians who most nearly approach Paganini’s temperament.  When execution reaches this supreme degree, the executant stands beside the poet, as it were; he is to the composer as the actor is to the writer of plays, a divinely inspired interpreter of things divine.  But that night, when Schmucke gave Pons an earnest of diviner symphonies, of that heavenly music for which Saint Cecile let fall her instruments, he was at once Beethoven and Paganini, creator and interpreter.  It was an outpouring of music inexhaustible as the nightingale’s song—­varied and full of delicate undergrowth as the forest flooded with her trills; sublime as the sky overhead.  Schmucke played as he had never played before, and the soul of the old musician listening to him rose to ecstasy such as Raphael once painted in a picture which you may see at Bologna.

A terrific ringing of the door-bell put an end to these visions.  The first-floor lodgers sent up a servant with a message.  Would Schmucke please stop the racket overhead.  Madame, Monsieur, and Mademoiselle Chapoulot had been wakened, and could not sleep for the noise; they called his attention to the fact that the day was quite long enough for rehearsals of theatrical music, and added that people ought not to “strum” all night in a house in the Marais.—­It was then three o’clock in the morning.  At half-past three, La Cibot appeared, just as Pons had predicted.  He might have actually heard the conference between Fraisier and the portress:  “Did I not guess exactly how it would be?” his eyes seemed to say as he glanced at Schmucke, and, turning a little, he seemed to be fast asleep.

Schmucke’s guileless simplicity was an article of belief with La Cibot (and be it noted that this faith in simplicity is the great source and secret of the success of all infantine strategy); La Cibot, therefore, could not suspect Schmucke of deceit when he came to say to her, with a face half of distress, half of glad relief: 

“I haf had a derrible night! a derrible dime of it!  I vas opliged to play to keep him kviet, and the virst-floor lodgers vas komm up to tell me to be kviet! . . .  It was frightful, for der life of mein friend vas at shtake.  I am so tired mit der blaying all night, dat dis morning I am all knocked up.”

“My poor Cibot is very bad, too; one more day like yesterday, and he will have no strength left. . . .  One can’t help it; it is God’s will.”

“You haf a heart so honest, a soul so peautiful, dot gif der Zipod die, ve shall lif togedder,” said the cunning Schmucke.

The craft of simple, straightforward folk is formidable indeed; they are exactly like children, setting their unsuspected snares with the perfect craft of the savage.

“Oh, well go and sleep, sonny!” returned La Cibot.  “Your eyes look tired, they are as big as my fist.  But there! if anything could comfort me for losing Cibot, it would be the thought of ending my days with a good man like you.  Be easy.  I will give Mme. Chapoulot a dressing down. . . .  To think of a retired haberdasher’s wife giving herself such airs!”

Schmucke went to his room and took up his post in the closet.

La Cibot had left the door ajar on the landing; Fraisier came in and closed it noiselessly as soon as he heard Schmucke shut his bedroom door.  He had brought with him a lighted taper and a bit of very fine wire to open the seal of the will.  La Cibot, meanwhile, looking under the pillow, found the handkerchief with the key of the bureau knotted to one corner; and this so much the more easily because Pons purposely left the end hanging over the bolster, and lay with his face to the wall.

La Cibot went straight to the bureau, opened it cautiously so as to make as little noise as possible, found the spring of the secret drawer, and hurried into the salon with the will in her hand.  Her flight roused Pons’ curiosity to the highest pitch; and as for Schmucke, he trembled as if he were the guilty person.

“Go back,” said Fraisier, when she handed over the will.  “He may wake, and he must find you there.”

Fraisier opened the seal with a dexterity which proved that his was no ’prentice hand, and read the following curious document, headed “My Will,” with ever-deepening astonishment: 

“On this fifteenth day of April, eighteen hundred and forty-five, I, being in my sound mind (as this my Will, drawn up in concert with M. Trognon, will testify), and feeling that I must shortly die of the malady from which I have suffered since the beginning of February last, am anxious to dispose of my property, and have herein recorded my last wishes:—­

“I have always been impressed by the untoward circumstances that injure great pictures, and not unfrequently bring about total destruction.  I have felt sorry for the beautiful paintings condemned to travel from land to land, never finding some fixed abode whither admirers of great masterpieces may travel to see them.  And I have always thought that the truly deathless work of a great master ought to be national property; put where every one of every nation may see it, even as the light, God’s masterpiece, shines for all His children.

“And as I have spent my life in collecting together and choosing a few pictures, some of the greatest masters’ most glorious work, and as these pictures are as the master left them—­genuine examples, neither repainted nor retouched,—­it has been a painful thought to me that the paintings which have been the joy of my life, may be sold by public auction, and go, some to England, some to Russia, till they are all scattered abroad again as if they had never been gathered together.  From this wretched fate I have determined to save both them and the frames in which they are set, all of them the work of skilled craftsmen.

“On these grounds, therefore, I give and bequeath the pictures which compose my collection to the King, for the gallery in the Louvre, subject to the charge (if the legacy is accepted) of a life-annuity of two thousand four hundred francs to my friend Wilhelm Schmucke.

“If the King, as usufructuary of the Louvre collection, should refuse the legacy with the charge upon it, the said pictures shall form a part of the estate which I leave to my friend, Schmucke, on condition that he shall deliver the Monkey’s Head, by Goya, to my cousin, President Camusot; a Flower-piece, the tulips, by Abraham Mignon, to M. Trognon, notary (whom I appoint as my executor):  and allow Mme. Cibot, who has acted as my housekeeper for ten years, the sum of two hundred francs per annum.

“Finally, my friend Schmucke is to give the Descent from the Cross, Ruben’s sketch for his great picture at Antwerp, to adorn a chapel in the parish church, in grateful acknowledgment of M. Duplanty’s kindness to me; for to him I owe it that I can die as a Christian and a Catholic.”—­So ran the will.

“This is ruin!” mused Fraisier, “the ruin of all my hopes.  Ha!  I begin to believe all that the Presidente told me about this old artist and his cunning.”

“Well?” La Cibot came back to say.

“Your gentleman is a monster.  He is leaving everything to the Crown.  Now, you cannot plead against the Crown. . . .  The will cannot be disputed. . . .  We are robbed, ruined, spoiled, and murdered!”

“What has he left to me?”

“Two hundred francs a year.”

“A pretty come-down! . . .  Why, he is a finished scoundrel.”

“Go and see,” said Fraisier, “and I will put your scoundrel’s will back again in the envelope.”

While Mme. Cibot’s back was turned, Fraisier nimbly slipped a sheet of blank paper into the envelope; the will he put in his pocket.  He next proceeded to seal the envelope again so cleverly that he showed the seal to Mme. Cibot when she returned, and asked her if she could see the slightest trace of the operation.  La Cibot took up the envelope, felt it over, assured herself that it was not empty, and heaved a deep sigh.  She had entertained hopes that Fraisier himself would have burned the unlucky document while she was out of the room.

“Well, my dear M. Fraisier, what is to be done?”

“Oh! that is your affair!  I am not one of the next-of-kin, myself; but if I had the slightest claim to any of that” (indicating the collection), “I know very well what I should do.”

“That is just what I want to know,” La Cibot answered, with sufficient simplicity.

“There is a fire in the grate——­” he said.  Then he rose to go.

“After all, no one will know about it, but you and me——­” began La Cibot.

“It can never be proved that a will existed,” asserted the man of law.

“And you?”

“I? . . .  If M. Pons dies intestate, you shall have a hundred thousand francs.”

“Oh yes, no doubt,” returned she.  “People promise you heaps of money, and when they come by their own, and there is talk of paying they swindle you like—­” “Like Elie Magus,” she was going to say, but she stopped herself just in time.

“I am going,” said Fraisier; “it is not to your interest that I should be found here; but I shall see you again downstairs.”

La Cibot shut the door and returned with the sealed packet in her hand.  She had quite made up her mind to burn it; but as she went towards the bedroom fireplace, she felt the grasp of a hand on each arm, and saw—­Schmucke on one hand, and Pons himself on the other, leaning against the partition wall on either side of the door.

La Cibot cried out, and fell face downwards in a fit; real or feigned, no one ever knew the truth.  This sight produced such an impression on Pons that a deadly faintness came upon him, and Schmucke left the woman on the floor to help Pons back to bed.  The friends trembled in every limb; they had set themselves a hard task, it was done, but it had been too much for their strength.  When Pons lay in bed again, and Schmucke had regained strength to some extent, he heard a sound of sobbing.  La Cibot, on her knees, bursting into tears, held out supplicating hands to them in very expressive pantomime.

“It was pure curiosity!” she sobbed, when she saw that Pons and Schmucke were paying attention to her proceedings.  “Pure curiosity; a woman’s fault, you know.  But I did not know how else to get a sight of your will, and I brought it back again—­”

“Go!” said Schmucke, standing erect, his tall figure gaining in height by the full height of his indignation.  “You are a monster!  You dried to kill mein goot Bons!  He is right.  You are worse than a monster, you are a lost soul!”

La Cibot saw the look of abhorrence in the frank German’s face; she rose, proud as Tartuffe, gave Schmucke a glance which made him quake, and went out, carrying off under her dress an exquisite little picture of Metzu’s pointed out by Elie Magus.  “A diamond,” he had called it.  Fraisier downstairs in the porter’s lodge was waiting to hear that La Cibot had burned the envelope and the sheet of blank paper inside it.  Great was his astonishment when he beheld his fair client’s agitation and dismay.

“What has happened?”

“This has happened, my dear M. Fraisier.  Under pretence of giving me good advice and telling me what to do, you have lost me my annuity and the gentlemen’s confidence. . . .”

One of the word-tornadoes in which she excelled was in full progress, but Fraisier cut her short.

“This is idle talk.  The facts, the facts! and be quick about it.”

“Well; it came about in this way,”—­and she told him of the scene which she had just come through.

“You have lost nothing through me,” was Fraisier’s comment.  “The gentlemen had their doubts, or they would not have set this trap for you.  They were lying in wait and spying upon you. . . .  You have not told me everything,” he added, with a tiger’s glance at the woman before him.

“I hide anything from you!” cried she—­“after all that we have done together!” she added with a shudder.

“My dear madame, I have done nothing blameworthy,” returned Fraisier.  Evidently he meant to deny his nocturnal visit to Pons’ rooms.

Every hair on La Cibot’s head seemed to scorch her, while a sense of icy cold swept over her from head to foot.

“What?” . . . she faltered in bewilderment.

“Here is a criminal charge on the face of it. . . .  You may be accused of suppressing the will,” Fraisier made answer drily.

La Cibot started.

“Don’t be alarmed; I am your legal adviser.  I only wished to show you how easy it is, in one way or another, to do as I once explained to you.  Let us see, now; what have you done that this simple German should be hiding in the room?”

“Nothing at all, unless it was that scene the other day when I stood M. Pons out that his eyes dazzled.  And ever since, the two gentlemen have been as different as can be.  So you have brought all my troubles upon me; I might have lost my influence with M. Pons, but I was sure of the German; just now he was talking of marrying me or of taking me with him—­it is all one.”

The excuse was so plausible that Fraisier was fain to be satisfied with it.  “You need fear nothing,” he resumed.  “I gave you my word that you shall have your money, and I shall keep my word.  The whole matter, so far, was up in the air, but now it is as good as bank-notes. . . .  You shall have at least twelve hundred francs per annum. . . .  But, my good lady, you must act intelligently under my orders.”

“Yes, my dear M. Fraisier,” said La Cibot with cringing servility.  She was completely subdued.

“Very good.  Good-bye,” and Fraisier went, taking the dangerous document with him.  He reached home in great spirits.  The will was a terrible weapon.

“Now,” thought he, “I have a hold on Mme. la Presidente de Marville; she must keep her word with me.  If she did not, she would lose the property.”

At daybreak, when Remonencq had taken down his shutters and left his sister in charge of the shop, he came, after his wont of late, to inquire for his good friend Cibot.  The portress was contemplating the Metzu, privately wondering how a little bit of painted wood could be worth such a lot of money.

“Aha!” said he, looking over her shoulder, “that is the one picture which M. Elie Magus regretted; with that little bit of a thing, he says, his happiness would be complete.”

“What would he give for it?” asked La Cibot.

“Why, if you will promise to marry me within a year of widowhood, I will undertake to get twenty thousand francs for it from Elie Magus; and unless you marry me you will never get a thousand francs for the picture.”

“Why not?”

“Because you would be obliged to give a receipt for the money, and then you might have a lawsuit with the heirs-at-law.  If you were my wife, I myself should sell the thing to M. Magus, and in the way of business it is enough to make an entry in the day-book, and I should note that M. Schmucke sold it to me.  There, leave the panel with me. . . .  If your husband were to die you might have a lot of bother over it, but no one would think it odd that I should have a picture in the shop. . . .  You know me quite well.  Besides, I will give you a receipt if you like.”

The covetous portress felt that she had been caught; she agreed to a proposal which was to bind her for the rest of her life to the marine-store dealer.

“You are right,” said she, as she locked the picture away in a chest; “bring me the bit of writing.”

Remonencq beckoned her to the door.

“I can see, neighbor, that we shall not save our poor dear Cibot,” he said lowering his voice.  “Dr. Poulain gave him up yesterday evening, and said that he could not last out the day. . . .  It is a great misfortune.  But after all, this was not the place for you. . . .  You ought to be in a fine curiosity shop on the Boulevard des Capucines.  Do you know that I have made nearly a hundred thousand francs in ten years?  And if you will have as much some day, I will undertake to make a handsome fortune for you—­as my wife.  You would be the mistress—­my sister should wait on you and do the work of the house, and—­”

A heartrending moan from the little tailor cut the tempter short; the death agony had begun.

“Go away,” said La Cibot.  “You are a monster to talk of such things and my poor man dying like this—­”

“Ah! it is because I love you,” said Remonencq; “I could let everything else go to have you—­”

“If you loved me, you would say nothing to me just now,” returned she.  And Remonencq departed to his shop, sure of marrying La Cibot.

Towards ten o’clock there was a sort of commotion in the street; M. Cibot was taking the Sacrament.  All the friends of the pair, all the porters and porters’ wives in the Rue de Normandie and neighboring streets, had crowded into the lodge, under the archway, and stood on the pavement outside.  Nobody so much as noticed the arrival of M. Leopold Hannequin and a brother lawyer.  Schwab and Brunner reached Pons’ rooms unseen by Mme. Cibot.  The notary, inquiring for Pons, was shown upstairs by the portress of a neighboring house.  Brunner remembered his previous visit to the museum, and went straight in with his friend Schwab.