A CHARMING VISITOR
Although Saniel had had no experience in business, he was not simple
enough not to know that in refusing him this loan Caffie meant to make
use of him.
"It is very simple," he said to himself, as he went downstairs. "He
undertakes to manage my affairs, and in such a way that some day I shall
have to save myself by marrying that charming girl. What a scoundrel!"
However, the situation was such that he was glad to avail himself of the
assistance of this scoundrel. At least, some time was gained, and when
Jardine found that he was not disposed to let himself be slaughtered, he
might accept a reasonable arrangement. But he must manage so that Caffie
would not prevent this arrangement.
Unfortunately, he felt himself hardly capable of such manoeuvring, having
been always straightforward, his eyes fixed on the end he wished to
attain, and thinking only of the work through which he would attain it.
And now he must act the part of a diplomat, submitting to craftiness and
rogueries that were not at all in accord with his open nature. He had
begun by not telling Caffie, instantly, what he thought of his
propositions; but it is more difficult to act than to control one's self,
to speak than to be silent.
What would he say, what would he do, when the time for action came?
He reached his house without having decided anything, and as he passed
before the concierge's lodge absorbed in thought, he heard some one call
him.
"Doctor, come in a moment, I beg of you."
He thought some one wished to consult him, some countryman who had waited
for his return; and, although he did not feel like listening patiently to
idle complainings, he turned back and entered the lodge.
"Some one brought this," the concierge said, handing him a paper that was
stamped and covered with a running handwriting. "This" was the beginning
of the fire of which Caffie had spoken. Without reading it, Saniel put
it in his pocket and turned to go; but the concierge detained him.
"I would like to say two words to 'monchieur le docteur' about this
paper."
"Have you read it?"
"No, but I talked with the officer who gave it to me, and he told me what
it meant. It is unfortunate, doctor."
To be pitied by his concierge! This was too much.
"It is not as he told you," he replied, haughtily.
"So much the better. I am glad for you and for me. You can pay my
little bill."
"Give it to me."
"I have given it to you twice already, but I have a copy. Here it is."
To be sued by a creditor paralyzed Saniel; he was stunned, crushed,
humiliated, and could only answer stupidly. Taking the bill that the
concierge handed him, he put it in his pocket and stammered a few words.
"You see, doctor, I must say what has been in my heart a long time. You
are my countryman, and I esteem you too much not to speak. In taking
your apartment and engaging your upholsterer, you did too much. You ruin
yourself. Give up your apartment, and take the one opposite that costs
less than half, and you will get on. You will not be obliged to leave
this quarter. What will become of our neighbors if you leave us? You
are a good doctor; everybody knows it and says so. And now, as for my
bill, it is understood that I shall be paid first, shall I not?"
"As soon as I have the money I will pay you."
"It is a promise?"
"I promise you."
"Thank you very much."
"If it could be to-morrow, it would suit me. I am not rich, you know, but
I have always paid the gas-bill for your experiments."
With the paper in his pocket, Saniel returned to Caffie, who was just
going out, and to whom he gave it.
"I will see about it this, evening," said the man of business. "Just now
I am going to dinner. Do not worry. To-morrow I will do what is
necessary. Good-evening. I am dying of hunger."
But three days before, Saniel emptied his purse to soothe his upholsterer
by an instalment as large as he was able to make it, keeping only five
francs for himself, and with the few sous left he could not go to a
resttaurant, not even the lowest and cheapest. He could only buy some
bread for his supper, and eat it while working, as he had often done
before.
But when he returned to his rooms he was not in a state of mind to write
an article that must be delivered that evening. Among other things that
he had undertaken was one, and not the least fastidious, which consisted
in giving, by correspondence, advice to the subscribers of a fashion
magazine, or, more exactly speaking, to recommend, in the form of medical
advice, all the cosmetics, depilatories, elixirs, dyes, essences, oils,
creams, soaps, pomades, toothpowders, rouges, and also all the chemists'
specialties, to which their inventors wished to give an authority that
the public, which believes itself acute, refused to the simple
advertisement on the last page. With his ambition and the career before
him, he would never have consented to carry on this correspondence under
his own name. He did it for a neighboring doctor, a simple man, who was
not so cautious, and who signed his name to these letters, glad to get
clients from any quarter. For his trouble, Saniel took this doctor's
place during Sunday in summer, and from time to time received a box of
perfumery or quack medicines, which he sold at a low price when occasion
offered.
Every week he received the list of cosmetics and specialties that he must
make use of in his correspondence, no matter how he recommended them,
whether in answer to letters that were really addressed to him, or by
inventing questions that gave him the opportunity to introduce them.
He began to consult this list and the pile of letters from subscribers
that the magazine had sent him, when the doorbell rang. Perhaps it was a
patient, the good patient whom he had expected for four years. He left
his desk to open the door.
It was his coal man, who came with his bill.
"I will stop some day when I am near you," Saniel said. "I am in a hurry
this evening."
"And I am in a hurry, too; I must pay a large bill tomorrow, and I count
upon having some money from you."
"I have no money here."
After a long talk he got rid of the man and returned to his desk. He had
answered but a few of the many letters when his bell rang again. This
time he would not open the door; it was a creditor, without doubt. And
he continued his correspondence.
But for four years he had waited for chance to draw him a good ticket in
the lottery of life--a rich patient afflicted with a cyst or a tumor that
he would take to a fashionable surgeon, who would divide with him the ten
or fifteen thousand francs that he would receive for the operation. In
that case he would be saved.
He ran to the door. The patient with the cyst presented himself in the
form of a small bearded man with a red face, wearing over his vest the
wine-merchant's apron of coarse black cloth. In fact, it was the wine
merchant from the corner, who, having heard of the officer's visit, came
to ask for the payment of his bill for furnishing wine for three months.
A scene similar to that which he had had with the coal merchant, but more
violent, took place, and it was only by threatening to put him out of the
door that Saniel got rid of the man, who went away declaring that he
would come the next morning with an officer.
Saniel returned to his work.
His pen flew over the paper, when a noise made him raise his head.
Either he had not closed the door tightly, or his servant was entering
with his key. What did he want? He did not employ him all day, but only
during his office hours, to put his rooms in order and to open the door
for his clients.
As Saniel rose to go and see who it was, there was a knock at the door.
It was his servant, with a blank and embarrassed air.
"What is the matter, Joseph?"
"I thought I should find you, sir, so I came."
"Why?"
Joseph hesitated; then, taking courage, he said volubly, while lowering
his eyes:
"I came to ask, sir, if you will pay me my month, which expired on the
fifteenth, because there is need of money at my house; if there was not
need of money I would not have come. If you wish, sir, I will release
you--"
"How?"
"I will take the coat that you made me order a month ago; I am quite sure
it is not worth what is due me, but it is always so."
"Take the coat."
Joseph took the coat from the wardrobe in the hall, and rolled it in a
newspaper.
"Of course you will not expect me in the morning," he said, as he put his
key on the table. "I must look out for another place."
"Very well, I shall not expect you."
"Good-evening, sir."
And Joseph hurried away as quickly as possible.
Left alone, Saniel did not return to his work immediately, but throwing
himself in an armchair he cast a melancholy glance around his office and
through the open door into the parlor. In the faint light of the candle
he saw the large armchairs methodically placed each side of the chimney,
the curtains at the windows lost in shadow, and all the furniture which
for four years had cost him so many efforts. He had long been the
prisoner of this Louis XIV camlet, and he was now going to be executed.
A beautiful affair, truly, brilliant and able! All this had been used
only by the poor Auvergnats, without Saniel enjoying it at all, for he
had neither the bourgeois taste for ornaments nor the desire for
elegance. A movement of anger and revolt against himself made him strike
his desk with his fist. What a fool he had been!
The bell rang again. This time, not expecting a rich patient, he would
not open it. After a moment a slight tap was heard on the panel. He
rose quickly and ran to open the door.
A woman threw herself into his arms.
"O my dearest! I am so glad to find you at home!"