AN UNWELCOME VISITOR.
On the morning following the day on which M. de Maillefort had been
introduced to Mlle. de Beaumesnil for the first time, Commander Bernard
was lying stretched out in the comfortable armchair which had been a
present from Olivier.
It was a beautiful summer morning, and the old sailor gazed out sadly
through the window on the parched flower beds, now full of weeds, for a
month before two of the veteran's old wounds had reopened, keeping him a
prisoner in his armchair, and preventing him from working in his beloved
garden.
The housekeeper was seated near the commander, busy with some sewing,
but for several minutes she must have been indulging in her usual
recriminations against "Bu-u-onaparte," for she was now saying to the
veteran, in tones of bitter indignation:
"Yes, monsieur, raw, raw; I tell you he ate it raw!"
The veteran, when his acute suffering abated a little, could not help
laughing at the housekeeper's absurd stories, so he said:
"What was it that this diabolical Corsican ogre ate raw, Mother
Barbancon?"
"His beef, monsieur! Yes, the night before the battle he ate his meat
raw! And do you know why?"
"No," answered the veteran, turning himself with difficulty in his
armchair; "I can not imagine, I am sure."
"The wretch did it to render himself more ferocious, so he would have
the courage to see his soldiers exterminated by the enemy,--above all,
the conscripts," added the indignant housekeeper. "His sole object in
life was to provide food for cannon, as he said, and so to depopulate
France by conscriptions that there would not be a single Frenchman left.
That was his diabolical scheme!"
Commander Bernard replied to this tirade by another loud burst of
laughter.
"Let me ask just this one question," he said. "If Bonaparte desired that
there shouldn't be another Frenchman left in France, who the devil would
he have had to reign over, then?"
"Why, negroes, of course," snapped the housekeeper, shrugging her
shoulders impatiently, and acting quite as if an absurdly easy question
had been put to her.
It was such a ridiculous answer, and so entirely unexpected, that a
moment of positive stupefaction preceded a fresh outburst of hilarity on
the part of the commander, who, as soon as he could control his mirth a
little, inquired:
"Negroes, what negroes?"
"Why, those American negroes with whom he was always plotting, and who,
while he was on his rock, began a tunnel which, starting at
Champ-d'Asile, and passing under St. Helena, was intended to transport
to the capital of the empire other negroes, friends of the American
negroes, so Bu-u-onaparte, in company with his odious Roustan, could
return to ravage all France."
"Really, Mother Barbancon," exclaimed the veteran, admiringly, "I never
knew your imagination to soar to such sublime heights before."
"I don't see that there is anything to laugh at, monsieur. Would you
like to have conclusive proof that the monster always intended to
replace the French by negroes?"
"I should indeed, Mother Barbancon," exclaimed the veteran, wiping tears
of mirth from his eyes. "Come, let us have the proof."
"Ah, well, monsieur, hasn't everybody said for years that your
Bu-u-onaparte treated the French like so many negroes?"
"Bravo, Mother Barbancon, bravo!"
"Well, isn't that proof enough that he would like to have had all
negroes instead of Frenchmen under his thumb?"
"Thanks, Mother Barbancon!" exclaimed the poor commander, fairly
writhing with merriment. "But this is too much, really too much!"
Two loud and imperious peals of the bell made the housekeeper spring
from her chair and hurry out of the room, exclaiming:
"There is some one who rings in a lordly way, I must say."
And closing the door of the veteran's chamber behind her, Madame
Barbancon flew to admit the visitor.
This proved to be a stout man about fifty years of age, wearing the
uniform of a second lieutenant in the National Guard,--a uniform that
gaped in a ridiculous manner behind, and disclosed to view in front an
enormous stomach, over which dangled a big gold chain. This personage,
who wore an immense bearskin hat that nearly covered his eyes, had a
pompous and extremely self-important air.
On beholding him, Madame Barbancon knit her brows, and, evidently not
very deeply impressed by the dignity of this citizen soldier, asked, in
a decidedly sharp tone:
"What, you here again?"
"It would be very strange if an owner"--the word owner was uttered with
the majestic air of a ruling sovereign--"if an owner could not come into
his own house, when--"
"You are not in your own house, for you have rented it to the
commander."
"This is the seventeenth of the month, and my porter has sent me a
printed notice that my rent has not been paid, so I--"
"We all know that. This is the third time in the last two days that you
have been here to dun us. Do you expect us to give you our last cent for
the rent? We'll pay you when we can, and that is all there is about it."
"When you can? A house owner is not to be paid in promises."
"House owner! You can boast of being a house owner only because for the
last twenty years you've been putting pepper in your brandy and chicory
in your coffee, as well as dipping your candles in boiling water to melt
off the tallow without anybody's discovering it, and with the proceeds
of this cheating you've perhaps bought a few houses. I don't see
anything to be so proud of in that, do you?"
"I have been a grocer, it is true. It is also true that I made money in
my business, and I am proud of the fact, madame."
"You have no reason to be. Besides, if you are rich, how can you have
the heart to torment a worthy man like the commander merely because he
is a little behind in his rent--for the first time, too, in over three
years."
"I don't care anything about that. Pay me my money, or out you go! It is
very astonishing; people can't pay their rent, but they must have
gardens and every modern convenience, these fastidious tenants of mine!"
"Come, come, M. Bouffard, don't go too far or you may be sorry for it!
Of course he must have a garden, this brave man, crippled with wounds,
for a garden is his only pleasure in life. If, instead of sticking to
your counter, you had gone to the wars like the commander, and shed your
blood in the four quarters of the globe, and in Russia, you wouldn't own
any more houses than he does! Go, and see if you do!"
"Once, twice, I ask, will you pay me to-day?"
"Three times, a hundred times, and a thousand times, no! Since the
commander's wound reopened, he can sleep only with the aid of opium.
That drug is as costly as gold itself, and the one hundred and fifty
francs he has received has had to go in medicine and doctor's visits."
"I don't care anything about your reasons. House owners would be in a
nice fix if they listened to their tenants' excuses. It was just the
same at one of my houses on the Rue de Monceau where I've just been. My
tenant there is a music teacher, who can't pay her rent because she's
been sick, she says, and hasn't been able to give lessons as usual. The
same old story! When a person is sick, he ought to go to the hospital,
and give you a chance to find another tenant."
"The hospital! Commander Bernard go to the hospital!" cried the now
thoroughly exasperated housekeeper. "No, not even if I have to go out as
a ragpicker at night, and nurse him in the daytime, he sha'n't go to the
hospital, understand that, but you run a great risk of going there
yourself if you don't clear out, for M. Olivier is coming back, and
he'll give you more kicks in your miserable stomach than you have hairs
in your bearskin cap."
"I would like to see any other house owner who would allow himself to be
abused in this fashion in his own house. But enough of this. I'll be
back at four o'clock, and if the hundred and fifty francs are not ready
for me, I'll seize your furniture."
"And I'll seize my fire-shovel and give you the reception you deserve!"
And the housekeeper slammed the door in M. Bouffard's face, and went
back to the commander. His fit of hilarity was over, but he was still in
a very good humour, so, on seeing Madame Barbancon return with cheeks
blazing with anger, the old sailor said to her:
"Well, it seems that you didn't expend all your wrath upon Bonaparte,
Mother Barbancon. Who the devil are you in such a rage with now?"
"With some one who isn't a bit better than your Emperor, I can tell you
that. The two would make a pretty pair. Bah!"
"And who is it that is such a good match for the emperor, Mother
Barbancon?"
"It is--"
But the housekeeper suddenly checked herself.
"Poor, dear man," she thought, "it would almost kill him if I should
tell him that the rent isn't paid, that the expenses of his illness have
eaten up every penny of his money, as well as sixty francs of my own.
I'll wait until M. Olivier comes. He may have some good news for us."
"What the deuce are you mooning about there instead of answering me,
Mother Barbancon? Is it some new atrocity of the little corporal's that
you are going to treat me to?"
"How glad I am! That must be M. Olivier," cried the housekeeper, hearing
the bell ring again, gently this time.
And again leaving her employer, Madame Barbancon ran to the door. It
was, indeed, the commander's nephew this time.
"Well, M. Olivier?" asked the housekeeper, anxiously.
"We are saved," replied the young man, wiping the sweat from his
forehead. "My worthy friend, the mason, had some difficulty in getting
the money he owed me, for I had not told him I should want it so soon,
but here are the two hundred francs at last," said Olivier, handing a
little bag of coin to the housekeeper.
"What a relief it is, M. Olivier."
"Why, has the landlord been here again?"
"He just left, the scoundrel! I told him pretty plainly what I thought
of him."
"But, my dear Madame Barbancon, when one owes a man money, one must pay
it. But my poor uncle suspects nothing, does he?"
"No, not a thing, I'm glad to say."
"So much the better."
"Such a capital idea has just struck me!" exclaimed the vindictive
housekeeper, as she counted the money the young man had just handed her.
"Such a capital idea!"
"What is it, Mother Barbancon?"
"That scoundrel will be back here at four o'clock, and I'm going to make
up a hot fire in my cook-stove and put thirty of these five-franc pieces
in it, and when that monster of a M. Bouffard comes, I'll tell him to
wait a minute, and then I'll go and take the money out with my tongs and
pile the coins up on the table, and then I'll say to him, 'There's your
money; take it.' That will be fine, M. Olivier, won't it. The law
doesn't forbid that, does it?"
"So you want to fire red-hot bullets at all the rich grocers, do you?"
laughed Olivier. "Do better than that. Save your charcoal, and give the
hundred and fifty francs to M. Bouffard cold."
"You are entirely too good-natured, M. Olivier. Let me at least spoil
his pretty face with my nails, the brigand."
"Nonsense! He's much more stupid than wicked."
"He's both, M. Olivier, he's both, I tell you!"
"But how is my uncle this morning? I went out so early that he was still
asleep, and I didn't like to wake him."
"He is feeling better, for he and I just had a fine dispute about his
monster. And then your return, why, it is worth more to him than all the
medicines in the world, and when I think that but for you that frightful
Bouffard might have turned us out in three or four days! And Heaven
knows that our belongings wouldn't have brought much, for our six
tablespoons and the commander's watch went when he was ill three years
ago."
"My good Mother Barbancon, don't talk of that, or you will drive me mad,
for when my furlough is over I shall not be here, and what happened
to-day may happen again at any time. But I won't even think of it. It is
too terrible!"
The commander's bell rang, and on hearing the sound the housekeeper said
to the young man, whose face wore an almost heart-broken expression:
"That is the commander ringing. For heaven's sake don't look so sad, M.
Olivier; he will be sure to suspect something."
"You needn't be afraid of that. But, by the way, Gerald is sure to call
this morning. You must let him in."
"All right, M. Olivier. Go to the commander at once, and I will soon
have your breakfast ready. Dear me, M. Olivier," she continued, with a
sigh, "can you be content with--"
"My dear, good woman," cried the young soldier, without allowing her to
finish, "don't I always have enough? Aren't you always depriving
yourself of something to give it to me?"
"Hush! Monsieur is ringing again. Hasten to him at once!"
And Olivier obeyed.