Beneath the cell, which our recluse occupied, a large smoky room (a
thick and mournful vault, which received no other light than that of the
fire in a vast chimney, continually filled with iron pots, boiling and
hissing) contained the Swartz family. While the wife made the greatest
possible number of dinners out of the smallest number of comestibles,
the husband sat before a table, blackened with ink and oil, and, by the
light of a lamp which burned constantly in this dark sanctuary, wrote
out immense bills containing the most fabulous items imaginable. The
miserable dinners were for the large number of prisoners whom Swartz had
contrived to number among his boarders; the bills were to be presented
to their relations or bankers without being always submitted to the
recipients of this luxurious alimentation. While the speculative couple
were devoting themselves with all their power to toil, two more
peaceable personages, in the chimney-corner, sat by in silence, perfect
strangers to the advantage and profit of what was going on. The first
was a poor starved cat, thin and famished, whose whole existence seemed
wasted in sucking its paws. The second was a young man, or rather a lad,
if possible uglier than the cat, who wasted his life in reading a book,
if possible, more greasy than his mother's pots, and whose eternal
reveries seemed to partake more of tranquil idiocy than the meditation
of a sentient being. The cat had been christened Belzebub, as an
antithesis to the name conferred by Herr and Vrau Swartz on the lad, who
was called Gottlieb.
Gottlieb, intended for the church, until he was fifteen had made rapid
progress in Protestant Theology. For four years, however, he had been
inert and invalid, hanging over the hearth side, unwilling to see the
sun, and unable to continue his studies. A rapid and irregular growth
had reduced him to a state of languor and indolence. His long, thin legs
scarcely sufficed to support his unnatural and ungainly height. His arms
were so feeble, and his hands so clumsy, that he could touch nothing
without breaking it. His avaricious mother had, therefore, forbidden him
to interfere at all, and he was ready enough to obey her. His face was
coarse and beardless, terminated by a high forehead, and was altogether
not unlike a ripe pear. His features were irregular as his figure. His
eyes seemed decidedly astray, so cross and diverging were they. His
thick lips had a stupid smile; his nose was shapeless, his complexion
colorless, his ears flat, and sticking close to his head. A few coarse,
wiry hairs covered his head, which was more like a turnip than the poll
of a Christian: this, at least, was the poetical comparison of his good
mother.
In spite of his natural disadvantages, in spite of the shame and
disappointment with which Vrau Swartz regarded him, Gottlieb, her only
son, an inoffensive and patient invalid, was yet the pride and joy of
the authors of his existence. They flattered themselves, when he became
less ugly, that some day he would be a handsome man. They had expected,
from his studious childhood, that his success in life would be
brilliant. Notwithstanding the precarious state to which he was reduced,
they hoped he would recover strength, power, intelligence, and beauty,
as soon as his growth had stopped. It is, besides, needless to remark,
that maternal love becomes used to anything, and is satisfied with
little. Vrau Swartz, though she abused, adored him, and had she not seen
him all day long planted like a _pillar of salt_ (such were her words)
at the corner of the fireplace, would have been unable to mix her sauces
or remember the items of her bills. Old Swartz, who, like many men, had
more self-love than tenderness in his paternal regard, persisted in
jewing and robbing his prisoners, in the hope that some day Gottlieb
would be a minister and a famous preacher. This was his fixed idea,
because, before he became rich, the young man had always displayed great
facility of expression. For four years, however, he had not said one
single sensible thing, and if he ever united two or three sentences
together, he spoke them to his cat Belzebub. In fine, Gottlieb was said
by the physicians to be an idiot, and his parents, alone thought that he
could be cured.
Gottlieb, however, once shook off his apathy, and told his parents that
he wished to learn a trade, to amuse himself, and make his tiresome
hours profitable. They yielded to this innocent desire, though it
scarcely conformed with the dignity attached to a preacher of the
reformed church to work with his hands. The mind of Gottlieb appeared,
however, so sunk in repose, that it was deemed prudent to permit him to
acquire the art of making shoes in a cobbler's stall. His father would
have wished him to study a more elegant profession. In vain did they
exhibit to him every branch of industry; he had a decided predilection
for the craft of Saint Crispin, and said that he was satisfied
Providence called him to embrace it. As this wish became a fixed idea,
and as the very fear of being interfered with threw him into an intense
melancholy, he was suffered to pass a month in the shop of a master
workman, whence he came one day with all the tools of the trade, and
installed himself in the chimney-corner, saying that he knew enough, and
had no need of further instruction. This was not probable; and his
parents, hoping that his experience had disgusted him, and that he
probably would resume the study of theology, neither reproached nor
laughed at him on his return. A new era in Gottlieb's life then began,
which was entirely delighted by the prospect of the manufacture of an
imaginary pair of shoes. Three or four hours a-day, he took his last and
worked at a shoe, which no one over wore, for it was never finished.
Every day it was stitched, stretched beaten, pointed, and took all
possible shapes, except that of a shoe. The artisan was, however,
delighted with his work, and was attentive, careful, patient, and
content, so that he utterly disregarded all criticism. At first, his
parents were afraid of this monomania, but gradually became used to it,
and the great shoe and the volume of sermons and prayers alternated in
his hands. Nothing more was required of him than to go from time to time
with his father through the galleries and courts, to get fresh air.
These promenades gave Swartz a great deal of annoyance, because the
children of the other keepers of the prison ran after Gottlieb,
imitating his idle and negligent gait, and shouting out "Shoes! shoes!
_Cobbler_, make me a pair of shoes! Take my measure--who wants shoes?"
For fear of getting him into difficulty with this rabble, Swartz dragged
him along, and the shoemaker was not at all troubled nor distressed at
being thus hurried from his work.
In the early part of her imprisonment, Consuelo had been humbly
requested by Swartz to get into conversation with Gottlieb, and try to
awaken in him the memory of and taste for that eloquence with which he
had been endowed in his childhood. While he owned the unhealthy state
and the apathy of his heir, Swartz, faithful to the law of nature, so
well defined by La Fontaine--
"Nos petits sont mignons,
Beaux, bienfaits, et jolis sur touts leurs compagnons."
had not described very faithfully the attractions of poor Gottlieb. Had
they done so, Consuelo, it is probable, would not have refused to
receive in her cell a young man of nineteen, five feet eight inches
high, who made the mouth of all the recruiters of the country water, but
who, unfortunately for his health, but fortunately for his independence,
was weak in the arms and legs, so as to be unfit for a soldier. The
prisoner thought that the society of a _child_ of that age and stature
was not exactly proper, and refused positively to receive him. This was
an insult the female Swartz made her atone for, by adding a pint of
water every day to her _bouillon._
On her way to the esplanade, where she was permitted to walk every day,
Consuelo was forced to pass the filthy home of the Swartz, and also to
go through it under the escort, and with the permission of her keeper,
who ever insisted on persuasion, (the article of _ceaseless
complaisance_ being highly charged in his bills.) It happened, then,
that in passing through this kitchen, one door of which opened on the
esplanade, Consuelo observed Gottlieb. A child's head on a giant's
frame, badly formed too, at first disgusted her; but, gradually, she
learned to pity him; questioned him kindly, and tried to make him talk.
Ere long, she discovered that his mind was paralysed either by disease
or extreme timidity. He would not accompany her to the rampart, until
his parents forced him to do so, and replied to her questions only by
monosyllables. In talking to him, therefore, she was afraid of
aggravating the _ennui_ she fancied he suffered from, and would not
either speak or talk to him. She had told his father she saw not the
slightest disposition for the oratorical art in him.
Consuelo had been searched a second time by Madame Swartz, on the day
when she had met Porporino and sang to the Berlinese public. She
contrived, however, to deceive the vigilance of the female Cerberus. The
hour was late, and the old woman was out of humor at being disturbed in
her first slumber. While Gottlieb slept in one room, or rather in a
closet which opened into the kitchen, and the jailer went up stairs to
open her cell, Consuelo had approached the fire, which was smothered by
the ashes, and while pretending to caress Belzebub, managed to save her
funds from the hands of the searcher, so as to be no longer fully at her
control. While Madame Swartz was lighting her lamp and putting on her
spectacles, Consuelo observed in the chimney-corner, where Gottlieb
habitually sat, a recess in the wall about the elevation of her arm, and
in this mysterious recess lay his library and tools. This hole,
blackened by soot and smoke, contained all Gottlieb's wealth and riches.
By an adroit movement, Consuelo slipped her purse into the recess, and
then suffered herself to be patiently examined by the old vixen, who
persisted for a long time in passing her oily fingers over all the folds
of her dress, and who was surprised and angry at finding nothing. The
_sang froid_ of Consuelo, who after all, was not very anxious to succeed
in her enterprise, at last satisfied the jailer that she had nothing
hidden; and, as soon as the examination was over, she contrived to
recover her purse, and keep it in her hand under her cloak until she
reached her cell. There she set about concealing it, being well aware
that when she was taking her walk, her cell was searched regularly. She
could do nothing better than keep her little fortune always about her,
sewed up in a girdle, the female Swartz having no right to search her
except when she had left the prison.
By and by, the first sum which had been found on the person of the
prisoner, when she reached the fortress, was exhausted, thanks to the
ingenious bills of Swartz. When he had given her a few very meagre meals
and a round bill, being, as usual, too timid to speak of business, and
ask a person condemned to poverty for money, in consonance with
information had from her, on the day of her incarceration, in relation
to the money in Porporino's hands, Swartz went to Berlin, and presented
his bill to the contralto. Porporino, in obedience to Cousuelo's
directions, refused to pay the bill until the prisoner directed it, and
bade the creditor ask his prisoner, whom he knew to have a comfortable
sum of money, to pay it.
Swartz returned, pale and in despair, asserting that he was ruined. He
looked on himself as robbed, although the hundred ducats he first found
on the prisoner would have paid him four-fold for all she had consumed
during two entire months. The old woman bore this pretended loss with
the philosophy of a stronger head and more persevering mind.
"We are robbed," said she, "of a surety; but you never relied on this
prisoner certainly? I told you what would happen. An actress--bah! those
sort of people never save anything. An actor as her banker!--what would
you expect? We have lost two hundred ducats--we will make this loss up
on others, however, who have means. This will teach you to go headlong
and offer your services to the first comer. I am not sorry, Swartz, you
have had this lesson. I will now do myself the pleasure of putting her
on dry bread, and that, too, rather stale, for being so careless as not
to put a single 'Frederick' in her pocket to pay the searcher, and for
treating Gottlieb as a fool, because he would not make love to her."
Thus scolding and shrugging her shoulders, the old woman seating herself
near the chimney by Gottlieb, said--"What do you think of all this, my
clever fellow?"
She talked merely to hear herself, being well aware that Gottlieb paid
no more attention than the cat Belzebub did to her words.
"My shoe is almost done, mother; I will soon begin a new pair."
"Yes," said the old woman, with an expression of pity; "work so, and you
will make a pair a-day. Go on, my boy; you will be very rich. My God! my
God!" she continued, opening her pots, and with an expression of pitiful
resignation, just as if the maternal instinct had endowed her with any
of the feelings of humanity.
Consuelo, seeing her dinner did not come, was well aware what had
happened, though she could scarcely think a hundred ducats had been
absorbed in such a short time. She had previously marked out a plan of
conduct, in regard to the jailer: not having as yet received a penny
from the King of Prussia, (that was the way Voltaire was paid.) She was
well aware that the money she had gained by charming the ears of some
less avaricious persons would not last her long, if her incarceration
were prolonged and Swartz did not modify his claims. She wished to force
him to reduce his demands, and for two or three days contented herself
with the bread and water he brought, without remarking the change in her
diet. The stove also, began to be neglected, and Consuelo suffered with
cold, without complaining of it. The weather, fortunately, was not very
severe. It was April, when in Prussia the weather is not as mild as it
is in France, but when the genial season commences.
Before entering into a parley with her avaricious tyrant, she set about
disposing her money in a place of safety. She could not hope that she
would not be subjected to an examination and an arbitrary seizure of her
funds, as soon as she should own her resources. Necessity makes us
shrewd, if it does not do more. Consuelo had nothing with which she
could cut either wood or stone. On the next day as she examined with the
minute patience of a prisoner, every corner of her cell, she observed a
brick which did not seem to be as well jointed as the others. She
scratched it with her nails, took out the mortar, which she saw was not
lime, but a friable substance, which she supposed to be dried bread. She
took out the brick, and found behind it a recess carefully formed in the
depth of the wall. She was not surprised to find in it many things which
to a prisoner were real luxuries; a package of pencils, a penknife, a
flint, tinder, and parcels of that thin waxlight, twisted in rolls, and
called _care_-nots. These things were not at all injured, the wall being
dry, and besides, they could not have been there long before she took
possession of the cell. With them she placed her purse, her filagree
crucifix, which Swartz looked greedily at, saying it would be such a
pretty thing for Gottlieb. She then replaced the brick and cemented it
with her loaf, which she soiled a little by rubbing it on the floor, to
make it appear the color of mortar.
Having become tranquil for a time, in relation to the occupation of her
evenings and her means of existence, she waited with not a little
eagerness for the domiciliary visit of Swartz, and felt proud and happy
as if she had discovered a new world.
Swartz soon became tired of having no speculation. If he must work, said
he, it was better to do it for a small sum than for nothing, and he
broke the silence by asking prisoner _No. 3_ if she had nothing to
order? Then Consuelo resolved to tell him that she had no money, but
would receive funds every week by a means which it was impossible for
him to discover.
"If you should do so," said she, "it would make it impossible for me to
receive anything, and you must say whether you prefer the letter of your
orders, to your interests."
After a long discussion, and after having for some days examined the
clothes, floor, furniture, and bed, Swartz began to think that Consuelo
received the means of existence from some superior officer of the
fortress. Corruption existed in every grade of the prison officials, and
subalterns never contradicted their more powerful associates.
"Let us take what God sends us," said Swartz, with a sigh, and he
consented to settle every week with Porporina. She did not dispute about
the disbursement of her funds, but regulated the accounts, so as not to
pay more than twice the value of each article, a plan which Vrau Swartz
thought very mean, but which did not prevent her from earning it.