Godefroid now went to the rue d’Enfer, the address given him by Monsieur
Alain, and there found Dr. Berton, a cold, grave man, who astonished him
much by confirming all the details given by Monsieur Bernard about
his daughter’s illness. From him Godefroid obtained the address of
Halpersohn.
This Polish doctor, since so celebrated, then lived in Chaillot, rue
Marbeuf, in an isolated house where he occupied the first floor. General
Romanus Zarnowski lived on the second floor, and the servants of the two
refugees inhabited the garret of this little house, which had but two
stories. Godefroid did not find Halpersohn, and was told that he had
gone into the provinces, sent for by a rich patient; he was almost glad
not to meet him, for in his hurry he had forgotten to supply himself
with money; and he now went back to the hotel de la Chanterie to get
some.
These various trips and the time consumed in dining at a restaurant in
the rue de l’Odeon brought Godefroid to the hour when he said he
would return and take possession of his lodging on the boulevard du
Mont-Parnasse. Nothing could be more forlorn than the manner in which
Madame Vauthier had furnished the two rooms. It seemed as though the
woman let rooms with the express purpose that no one should stay in
them. Evidently the bed, chairs, tables, bureau, secretary, curtains,
came from forced sales at auction, articles massed together in lots as
having no separate intrinsic value.
Madame Vauthier, with her hands on her hips, stood waiting for thanks;
she took Godefroid’s smile for one of surprise.
“There! I picked out for you the very best we have, my dear Monsieur
Godefroid,” she said with a triumphant air. “See those pretty silk
curtains, and the mahogany bedstead which hasn’t got a worm-hole in
it! It formerly belonged to the Prince of Wissembourg. When he left his
house, rue Louis-le-Grand, in 1809, I was the kitchen-girl. From there,
I went to live as cook with the present owner of this house.”
Godefroid stopped the flux of confidences by paying a month’s rent in
advance; and he also gave, in advance, the six francs he was to pay
Madame Vauthier for the care of his rooms. At that moment he heard
barking, and if he had not been duly warned by Monsieur Bernard, he
would certainly have supposed that his neighbor kept a dog.
“Does that dog bark at night?” he asked.
“Oh! don’t be uneasy, monsieur; you’ll only have one week to stand those
persons. Monsieur Bernard can’t pay his rent and we are going to put
him out. They are queer people, I tell you! I have never seen their
dog. That animal is sometimes months, yes, six months at a time without
making a sound; you might think they hadn’t a dog. The beast never
leaves the lady’s room. There’s a sick lady in there, and very sick,
too; she’s never been out of her room since she came. Old Monsieur
Bernard works hard, and the son, too; the lad is a day-scholar at the
school of Louis-le-Grand, where he is nearly through his philosophy
course, and only sixteen, too; that’s something to boast of! but the
little scamp has to work like one possessed. Presently you’ll hear them
bring out the plants they keep in the lady’s room and carry in fresh
ones. They themselves, the grandfather and the boy, only eat bread,
though they buy flowers and all sorts of dainties for the lady. She must
be very ill, not to leave her room once since entering it; and if one’s
to believe Monsieur Berton, the doctor, she’ll never come out except
feet foremost.”
“What does this Monsieur Bernard do?”
“It seems he’s a learned man; he writes and goes about to libraries.
Monsieur lends him money on his compositions.”
“Monsieur? who is he?”
“The proprietor of the house, Monsieur Barbet, the old bookseller. He is
a Norman who used to sell green stuff in the streets, and afterwards set
up a bookstall, in 1818, on the quay. Then he got a little shop, and now
he is very rich. He is a kind of a Jew, with a score of trades; he
was even a partner with the Italian who built this barrack to lodge
silk-worms.”
“So this house is a refuge for unfortunate authors?” said Godefroid.
“Is monsieur unluckily one himself?” asked the widow Vauthier.
“I am only just starting,” replied Godefroid.
“Oh! my dear monsieur, take my advice and don’t go on; journalist?
well,--I won’t say anything against that.”
Godefroid could not help laughing as he bade good-night to the portress,
who thus, all unconsciously, represented the bourgeoisie. As he went
to bed in the horrible room, floored with bricks that were not even
colored, and hung with a paper at seven sous a roll, Godefroid not only
regretted his little rooms in the rue Chanoinesse, but also the society
of Madame de la Chanterie. He felt a void in his soul. He had already
acquired habits of mind; and could not remember to have so keenly
regretted anything in all his former life as this break in his new
existence. These thoughts, as they pressed upon him, had a great effect
upon his soul; he felt that no life could compare in value with the one
he sought to embrace, and his resolution to emulate the good old Alain
became unshakable. Without having any vocation for the work, he had the
will to do it.
The next day Godefroid, already habituated by his new life to rising
early, saw from his window a young man about seventeen years of age,
dressed in a blouse, who was coming back, no doubt from the public
fountain, bringing a crock full of water in each hand. The face of this
lad, who was not aware that he was seen, revealed his feelings, and
never had Godefroid observed one so artless and so melancholy. The
graces of youth were all repressed by poverty, by study, by great
physical fatigue. Monsieur Bernard’s grandson was remarkable for a
complexion of extreme whiteness, which the contrast with his dark hair
seemed to make still whiter. He made three trips; when he returned from
the last he saw some men unloading a cord of wood which Godefroid
had ordered the night before, for the long-delayed winter of 1838 was
beginning to be felt; snow had fallen slightly during the night.
Nepomucene, who had begun his day by going for the wood (on which
Madame Vauthier levied a handsome tribute), spoke to the young lad while
waiting until the woodman had sawed enough for him to carry upstairs.
It was easy to see that the sudden cold was causing anxiety to Monsieur
Bernard’s grandson, and that the sight of the wood, as well as that of
the threatening sky, warned him that they ought to be making their
own provision for wintry weather. Suddenly, however, as if reproaching
himself for lost time, he seized his crocks and hastily entered the
house. It was, in fact, half-past seven o’clock, the hour was just
ringing from the belfry of the convent of the Visitation, and he was due
at the college of Louis-le-Grand by half-past eight.
As the young lad entered the house, Godefroid went to his door to admit
Madame Vauthier who brought her new lodger the wherewithal to make a
fire, and he thus became the witness of a scene which took place on the
landing.
A neighboring gardener, who had rung several times at Monsieur Bernard’s
door without making any one hear (for the bell was wrapped in paper),
had a rather rough dispute with the young lad who now came up with the
water, demanding to be paid for the flowers he had supplied. As the man
raised his voice angrily Monsieur Bernard appeared. “Auguste,” he said
to his grandson, “dress yourself, it is time for school.”
He himself took the two crocks of water, carried them into the first of
his rooms, in which were many pots of flowers, and returned to speak to
the gardener, carefully closing the door behind him. Godefroid’s door
was open, for Nepomucene had begun his trips, and was stacking the
wood in the front room. The gardener was silent in presence of Monsieur
Bernard, whose tall figure, robed in a violet silk dressing-gown,
buttoned to the throat, gave him an imposing air.
“You might ask for what is owing to you without such noise,” said
Monsieur Bernard.
“Be fair, my dear monsieur,” said the gardener. “You agreed to pay
me every week, and it now three months, ten weeks, since I have had a
penny; you owe me a hundred and twenty francs. We let out our plants to
rich people who pay us when we ask for the money; but this is the fifth
time I have come to you for it. I have my rent to pay and the wages of
my men; I am not a bit richer than you. My wife, who supplied you with
eggs and milk, will not come here any more; you owe her thirty francs.
She does not like to dun you, for she is kind-hearted, that she is! If I
listened to her, I couldn’t do business at all. And so I, who am not so
soft--you understand?”
Just then Auguste came out dressed in a shabby little green coat with
cloth trousers of the same color, a black cravat, and worn-out boots.
These clothes, though carefully brushed, showed the lowest degree of
poverty; they were all too short and too narrow, so that the lad seemed
likely to crack them at every motion. The seams were white, the edges
curled, the buttonholes torn in spite of many mendings; the whole
presenting to the most unobservant eyes the heart-breaking stigmas of
honest penury. This livery contrasted sadly with the youth of the lad,
who now disappeared munching a crust of stale bread with his strong and
handsome teeth. He breakfasted thus on his way to the rue Saint-Jacques,
carrying his books and papers under his arm, and wearing a little cap
much too small for his head, from which stuck out a mass of magnificent
black hair.
In passing before his grandfather the lad had given him rapidly a
look of deep distress; for he knew him to be in an almost hopeless
difficulty, the consequences of which might be terrible. To leave
room for the boy to pass, the gardener had stepped back to the sill
of Godefroid’s door, and as at that moment Nepomucene arrived with a
quantity of wood, the creditor was forced to retreat into the room.
“Monsieur Bernard!” cried the widow Vauthier, “do you think Monsieur
Godefroid hired his rooms to have you hold your meetings in them?”
“Excuse me, madame,” said the gardener, “but there was no room on the
landing.”
“I didn’t say that for you, Monsieur Cartier,” said the widow.
“Remain where you are!” cried Godefroid, addressing the gardener; “and
you, my dear neighbor,” he added, looking at Monsieur Bernard, who
seemed insensible to the cruel insult, “if it is convenient to you to
have an explanation with your gardener in my room, come in.”
The old man, half stupefied with his troubles, cast a look of gratitude
on Godefroid.
“As for you, my dear Madame Vauthier,” continued Godefroid, “don’t be
so rough with monsieur, who is in the first place an old man, and one to
whom you owe the obligation of my lodging here.”
“Oh, pooh!” said the widow.
“Besides, if poor people do not help each other, who will help them?
Leave us, Madame Vauthier; I’ll blow the fire myself. Have the rest of
my wood put in your cellar; I am sure you will take good care of it.”
Madame Vauthier disappeared, for Godefroid in telling her to take care
of his wood had given an opportunity to her greed.
“Come in this way,” said Godefroid, offering chairs to both debtor and
creditor.
The old man conversed standing, but the gardener sat down.
“My good Monsieur Cartier,” went on Godefroid, “rich people do not pay
as regularly as you say they do, and you ought not to dun a worthy man
for a few louis. Monsieur draws his pension every six months, and he
could not make you an assignment of it for such a paltry sum. I am
willing to advance the money, if you absolutely insist on having it.”
“Monsieur Bernard drew his pension two weeks ago, and has not paid me. I
am sorry to trouble him, of course.”
“Have you furnished him with plants all along?”
“Yes, monsieur, for six years, and he has always paid me.”
Monsieur Bernard, who was listening to some sound in his own rooms and
paying no attention to what was being said, now heard a cry through the
partitions and hurried away without a word.
“Come, come, my good man,” said Godefroid, taking advantage of the old
man’s absence, “bring some nice flowers, your best flowers, this very
morning, and tell your wife to send the eggs and milk as usual; I will
pay you this evening.”
Cartier looked oddly at Godefroid.
“Then you must know more than Madame Vauthier does; she sent me word to
hurry if I hoped to be paid,” he said. “Neither she nor I can make out
why folks who eat nothing but bread and the odds and ends of vegetables,
bits of carrots, turnips, and such things, which they get at the
back-doors of restaurants,--yes, monsieur, I assure you I came one day
on the little fellow filling an old handbag,--well, I want to know why
such persons spend nearly forty francs a month on flowers. They say the
old man’s pension is only three thousand francs.”
“At any rate,” said Godefroid, “it is not your business to complain if
they ruin themselves in flowers.”
“That’s true, monsieur,--provided they pay me.”
“Bring your bill to me.”
“Very good, monsieur,” said the gardener, with a tinge of respect.
“Monsieur no doubt wants to see the mysterious lady.”
“My good friend,” said Godefroid, stiffly, “you forget yourself. Go home
now and bring fresh plants for those you are to take away. If you can
also supply me with good cream and fresh eggs I will take them, and I
will go this morning and take a look at your establishment.”
“It is one of the finest in Paris, monsieur. I exhibit at the
Luxembourg. My garden, which covers three acres, is on the boulevard,
behind the garden of La Grande-Chaumiere.”
“Very good, Monsieur Cartier. You are, I see, much richer than I. Have
some consideration for us, therefore. Who knows how soon we may have
mutual need of each other?”
The gardener went away, much puzzled as to who and what Godefroid might
be.
“And yet I was once just like that,” thought Godefroid, blowing his
fire. “What a fine specimen of the bourgeois of to-day!--gossiping,
inquisitive, crazy for equality, jealous of his customers, furious at
not knowing why a poor sick woman stays in her room without being seen;
concealing his wealth, and yet vain enough to betray it when he thinks
it will put him above his neighbor. That man ought to be the lieutenant
of his company. I dare say he is. With what ease he plays the scene
of Monsieur Dimanche! A little more and I should have made a friend of
Monsieur Cartier.”
The old man broke into this soliloquy, which proves how Godefroid’s
ideas had changed in four months.
“Excuse me, neighbor,” said Monsieur Bernard, in a troubled voice; “I
see you have sent that gardener away satisfied, for he bowed civilly to
me on the landing. It seems, young man, as if Providence had sent you to
me at the very moment when I was about to succumb. Alas! the hard talk
of that man must have shown you many things! It is true that I received
the half-yearly payment of my pension two weeks ago; but I had more
pressing debts than his, and I was forced to put aside my rent for fear
of being turned out of the house. I have told you the state my daughter
is in, and you have probably heard her.”
He looked uneasily at Godefroid, who made him an affirmative sign.
“Well, then, you know it would be her death warrant, for I should then
be compelled to put her in a hospital. My grandson and I were fearing
that end this morning; but we do not dread Cartier so much as we do the
cold.”
“My dear Monsieur Bernard,” said Godefroid, “I have plenty of wood; take
all you want.”
“Ah!” said the old man, “but how can I ever return such services?”
“By accepting them without difficulty,” said Godefroid, quickly, “and by
giving me your confidence.”
“But what are my claims to so much generosity?” asked Monsieur Bernard,
becoming once more distrustful. “Ah! my pride and that of my grandson
are lowered indeed!” he cried bitterly. “We are compelled to offer
explanations to the few creditors--only two or three--whom we cannot
pay. The utterly unfortunate have no creditors; to have them one must
needs present an exterior of some show, and that we have now lost. But I
have not yet abdicated my common-sense,--my reason,” he added, as if he
were talking to himself.
“Monsieur,” replied Godefroid, gravely, “the history you gave me
yesterday would touch even a usurer.”
“No, no! for Barbet, that publisher, the proprietor of this house, is
speculating on my poverty, and has sent the Vauthier woman, his former
cook, to spy upon it.”
“How can he speculate upon you?” asked Godefroid.
“I will tell you later,” replied the old man. “My daughter is cold, and
since you offer it, I am reduced to accept alms, were it even from my
worst enemy.”
“I will carry in some wood,” said Godefroid, gathering up ten or a dozen
sticks, and taking them into Monsieur Bernard’s first room. The old
man took as many himself; and when he saw the little provision safely
deposited, he could not restrain the silly, and even idiotic smile with
which those who are saved from a mortal danger, which has seemed to them
inevitable, express their joy; for terror still lingers in their joy.
“Accept things from me, my dear Monsieur Bernard, without reluctance;
and when your daughter is safe, and you are once more at ease, we will
settle all. Meantime, let me act for you. I have been to see that Polish
doctor; unfortunately he is absent; he will not be back for two days.”
At this moment a voice which seemed to Godefroid to have, and really
had, a fresh, melodious ring, cried out, “Papa, papa!” on two expressive
notes.
While speaking to the old man, Godefroid had noticed that the jambs of
a door leading to another room were painted in a delicate manner,
altogether different from that of the rest of the lodging. His
curiosity, already so keenly excited, was now roused to the highest
pitch. He was conscious that his mission of benevolence was becoming
nothing more than a pretext; what he really wanted was to see that sick
woman. He refused to believe for an instant that a creature endowed with
such a voice could be an object of repulsion.
“You do, indeed, take too much trouble, papa!” said the voice. “Why not
have more servants?--and at your age, too! Good God!”
“But you know, my dear Vanda, that the boy and I cannot bear that any
one should wait upon you but ourselves!”
Those sentences, which Godefroid heard through the door, or rather
divined, for a heavy portiere on the inside smothered the sounds, gave
him an inkling of the truth. The sick woman, surrounded by luxury, was
evidently kept in ignorance of the real situation of her father and
son. The violet silk dressing-gown of Monsieur Bernard, the flowers,
his remarks to Cartier, had already roused some suspicion of this in
Godefroid’s mind. The young man stood still where he was, bewildered
by this prodigy of paternal love. The contrast, such as he imagined it,
between the invalid’s room and the rest of that squalid place,--yes, it
was bewildering!