A FORGED INTIMACY.
We will conduct the reader to the house in the Rue du Temple, the day
of the suicide of M. d'Harville, about three o'clock in the afternoon.
Pipelet, the porter, alone in the lodge, was occupied in mending a
boot. The chaste porter was dejected and melancholy. As a soldier, in
the humiliation of his defeat, passes his hand sadly over his scars,
Pipelet breathed a profound sigh, stopped his work, and moved his
trembling finger over the transverse fracture of his huge hat, made by
an insolent hand. Then all the chagrin, inquietude, and fears of
Alfred Pipelet were awakened in thinking of the inconceivable and
incessant pursuits of the author.
Pipelet had not a very extended or elevated mind; his imagination was
not the most lively nor the most poetical, but he possessed a very
solid, very logical, very common sense.
Cabrion, a painter, formerly a tenant, had seen fit to make the porter
a butt of the most audacious practical jokes, inundating him with
caricatures, laughable labels, and startling appearances before his
unexpectant appalled sight. Unfortunately, by a natural consequence of
the rectitude of his judgment, not being able to comprehend practical
jokes, Pipelet endeavored to find some reasonable motive for the
outrageous conduct of Cabrion, and on this subject he posed himself
with a thousand insoluble questions. Thus, sometimes, a new Paschal,
he felt himself seized with a vertigo in trying to sound the
bottomless abyss which the infernal genius of the painter had dug
under his feet. How many times, in the overflowings of his
imagination, he had been forced to commune within himself thanks to
the frenzied skepticism of Madame Pipelet, who, only looking at facts,
and disdaining to seek after causes, grossly considered the
incomprehensible conduct of Cabrion toward Alfred as simple
comicality.
Pipelet, a serious man, could not admit of such an interpretation; he
groaned at the blindness of his wife; his dignity as a man revolted at
the thought that he could be the plaything of a combination so vulgar
as a _lark!_ He was absolutely convinced that the unheard-of
conduct of Cabriori concealed some mysterious plot under a frivolous
appearance.
It was to solve this fatal problem that the man in the big hat
exhausted his powerful logic. "I would sooner lay my head on the
scaffold," said this austere man, who, as soon as he touched them,
increased immensely the importance of any propositions. "I would
sooner lay my head upon the scaffold than admit that, in the mere
intention of a stupid pleasantry, Cabrion could be so obstinately
exasperated against me; a _farce_ is only played for the gallery.
Now, in his last undertaking, this obnoxious creature had no witness;
he acted alone and in obscurity, as always; he clandestinely
introduced himself into the solitude of my lodge to deposit on my
forehead a hideous kiss! I ask any disinterested person, for what
purpose? It was not from bravado--no one saw him; it was not from
pleasure--the laws of nature opposed it; it was not from friendship--I
have but one enemy in the world--it is he. It must, then, be
acknowledged that there is a mystery there which my reason cannot
penetrate! Then to what does this diabolical plot, concerted and
pursued with a persistence which alarms me, tend? That I cannot
comprehend: it is this impossibility to raise the veil, which, by
degrees, is undermining and consuming me."
Such were the painful reflections of Pipelet at the moment when we
present him to our readers. The honest porter had just torn open his
bleeding wounds, by carry--his hand mechanically to the fracture of
his hat, when a piercing voice, coming from one of the upper stories
of the house, made these words resound again: "Mr. Pipelet, quick!
quick! come up! make haste!"
"I do not know that voice," said Alfred, after a moment of anxious
listening, and he let his arm, inclosed in the boot he was mending,
fall on his knees.
"Mr. Pipelet! make haste!" repeated the voice, in a pressing tone.
"That voice is completely strange to me. It is masculine; it calls me,
that I can affirm. It is not a sufficient reason that I should abandon
my lodge. Leave it--desert it in the absence of my wife--never!" cried
Alfred, heroically, "never!"
"Mr. Pipelet," said the voice, "come up quick, Mrs. Pipelet is off in
a swoon."
"Anastasia!" cried Alfred, rising from his seat: then be fell back
again, saying to himself, "child that I am--it is impossible; my wife
went out an hour ago. Yes, but might she not have returned without my
seeing her? This would be rather irregular; but I must declare that it
is possible."
"Mr. Pipelet, come up; I have your wife in my arms!"
"Some one has my wife in their arms!" said Pipelet, rising abruptly.
"I cannot unlace Mrs. Pipelet all alone!" added the voice.
These words produced a magical effect upon Alfred: his face flushed,
his chastity revolted.
"The masculine and unknown voice speaks of unlacing Anastasia!" cried
he: "I oppose it, I forbid it!" and he rushed out of the lodge; but on
the threshold he stopped.
Pipelet found himself in one of those horribly critical, and eminently
dramatical positions, so often described by poets. On the one hand,
duty retained him in his lodge: on the other, his chaste and conjugal
susceptibility called him to the upper stories of the house. In the
midst of these terrible perplexities, the voice said:
"You don't come, Mr. Pipelet? so much the worse--I cut the strings,
and I shut my eyes!"
This threat decided Pipelet.
"Mossieur!" cried he, in a stentorian voice, "in the name of honor I
conjure you to cut nothing--to leave my wife intact! I come!" and
Alfred rushed upstairs, leaving, in his alarm, the door of the lodge
open. Hardly had he left it, than a man entered quickly, took from the
table a hammer, jumped on the bed, at the back part of the obscure
alcove, and vanished. This operation was done so quickly, that the
porter, remembering almost immediately that he had left the door open,
returned precipitately, shut it, and carried off the key, without
suspecting that any one could have entered in this interval. After
this measure of precaution, Alfred started again to the assistance of
Anastasia, crying, with all his strength, "Cut nothing--I am coming--
here I am--I place my wife under the safeguard of your delicacy!"
Hardly had he mounted the first flight, before he heard the voice of
Anastasia, not from the upper story, but in the alley.
The voice, shriller than ever cried, "Alfred! here you leave the lodge
alone! Where are you, old gadabout?"
At this moment, Pipelet was about placing his right foot on the
landing-place of the first story; he remained petrified, his head
turned toward the bottom of the stairs, his mouth open, his eyes
fixed, his foot raised.
"Alfred!" cried Mrs. Pipelet anew.
"Anastasia is below--she is not above, occupied in being sick," said
Pipelet to himself, faithful to his logical argumentation. "But then
this unknown and masculine voice, who threatened to unlace her, is an
impostor. He has been playing a cruel game with my emotions! What is
his design? There is something extraordinary going on here! No matter:
do your duty, happen what may! After having responded to my wife, I
shall mount to enlighten this mystery and verify this voice."
Pipelet descended, very much troubled, and found himself face to face
with his wife.
"It is you?" said he.
"Well! yes, it is me; who would you have it to be?"
"It is you--my eyes do not deceive me!"
"Ah, now! what is the matter, that makes your big eyes look like
billiard balls? You look at me as if you were going to eat me."
"Your presence reveals to me that something has been passing here--
things--"
"What things? Come, give me the key of the lodge; why do you leave it?
I come from the office of the Normandy diligences, where I went in a
hack, to carry the trunk of M. Bradamanti, who did not wish it to be
known that he was about to leave town to-night, and who could not
depend on that little scoundrel Tortillard (Hoppy)--and he is right!"
Saying these words, Mrs. Pipelet took the key, which her husband held
in his hand, opened the lodge, and went in before her husband.
Hardly had they entered, when a person, descending the staircase
lightly, passed rapidly and unperceived before the lodge. It was the
"masculine voice" which had so deeply excited the inquietudes of
Alfred.
Pipelet rested himself heavily on his chair, and said to his wife in a
trembling voice, "Anastasia, I do not feel at my accustomed ease;
things occurring here--events--"
"Now you repeat that again; but things occur everywhere; what is the
matter? Come, let us see--why, you are all wet--all in a perspiration!
what effort have you been making? He's all a-trickling--the old
darling!"
"Yes, I perspire, as I have reason to;" Pipelet passed his hand over
his face, dripping with moisture; "for there are regular revolutionary
events passing here."
"Again I ask, what is it? You never can remain quiet. You must always
be trotting about like a cat, instead of remaining in your chair to
take care of the lodge."
"If I trot, it is for you."
"For me?"
"Yes; to spare you an outrage for which we both should have groaned
and blushed, I have deserted a post which I consider as sacred as the
sentry-box."
"Some one wished to commit an outrage on me--on me!"
"It was not on you, since the outrage of which you were threatened was
to have been accomplished upstairs, and you were gone out--"
"May Old Harry run away with me, if I understand a single word of what
you are singing there. Ah, ah! is it that you are decidedly losing your
noddle? I shall begin to think that you are absent-minded--the fault
of that beggarly Cabrion! Since his games of the other day, I don't
know you; you look struck all of a heap. That being will be always
your nightmare."
Hardly had Anastasia pronounced the words than a strange thing came to
pass. Alfred remained sitting, his face turned toward the bed. The
lodge was lighted by the sickly light of a winter's day, and by a
lamp. At the moment his wife pronounced the name Cabrion, Pipelet
thought he saw in the shade of the alcove the immovable, cunning face
of the painter. It was he, his pointed hat, long hair, thin face,
satanic smile, queer beard, and paralyzing gaze. For a moment, Pipelet
thought himself in a dream; he passed his hand over his eyes,
believing that he was the victim of an illusion. It was not an
illusion. Nothing could be more real than this apparition. Frightful
thing! nobody could be seen, but only a head, of which the living
flesh stood out in bold relief from the obscurity of the alcove. At
this sight Pipelet fell over backward, without saying a word; he
raised his right arm toward the bed, and pointed at this terrible
vision, with a gesture so alarming, that Mrs. Pipelet turned to seek
the cause of an alarm of which she soon partook, in spite of her
habitual courage. She recoiled two steps, seized with force the hand
of Alfred, and cried, "Cabrion!"
"Yes," murmured Pipelet, in a hollow voice, almost extinct, shutting
his eyes.
The stupor of the pair paid the greatest honor to the talent of the
artist who had so admirably painted on the pasteboard the features of
Cabrion. Her first surprise over, Anastasia, as bold as a lion, ran to
the bed, got on it, and tore the picture from the wall.
The amazon crowned this valiant enterprise by shouting, as a war-cry,
her favorite exclamation, "Go ahead!"
Alfred, with his eyes closed, his hands stretched forth, remained
immovable, as he had always been accustomed to do in the critical
moments of his life. The convulsive oscillations of his hat alone
revealed, from time to time, the continued violence of his interior
emotions.
"Open your eyes, old darling," said Mrs. Pipelet, triumphantly; "it's
nothing! it's a picture; the portrait of that scoundrel Cabrion! Look,
see how I stamp upon him!" and Anastasia, in her indignation, threw
the picture on the ground, and trampled it under her feet, crying,
"That's the way I would like to treat his flesh and bones, the
wretch!" then picking it up, "see!" said she, "now it has my marks;
look now!"
Alfred shook his head negatively, without saying a word, and making a
sign to his wife to take away the detested picture.
"Has ever any one seen such impudence? This is not all; he has
written at the bottom, in red letters, 'Cabrion, to his good friend
Pipelet, for life,'" said the portress, examining the picture by the
light.
"His good friend for life!" murmured Alfred; raising his hands as if
to call heaven to witness this new outrageous irony.
[Illustration: Louise in Prison]
"But how could he do it?" said Anastasia. "This portrait was not there
this morning when I made the bed, very sure. You took the key with you
just now: nobody could have entered while you were absent? How, then,
once more, could this portrait get there? Could it be you, by chance,
who put it there, old darling?"
At this monstrous hypothesis, Alfred bounced from his seat; he opened
his eyes wide and threatening.
"I fasten in my alcove the portrait of this evil-doer, who, not
content with persecuting me by his odious presence, pursues me at
night in my dreams--the daytime in a picture! Would you make me mad,
Anastasia? mad enough to be chained?"
"Well! for the sake of making peace, you might have agreed with
Cabrion during my absence. Where would be the great harm?"
"I make up with--oh, merciful powers! you hear her?"
"And then, he might have given you his portrait, as a pledge of
friendship. If this is so, do not deny it."
"Anastasia!"
"If this is so, it must be confessed you are as capricious as a pretty
woman."
"Wife!"
"In short, it must have been you who placed the portrait!"
"I--oh!"
"But who is it then?"
"You, madame."
"I!"
"Yes," cried Pipelet wildly, "it is you; I have reason to believe it
is you. This morning, having my back turned toward the bed I could see
nothing."
"But, old darling, I tell you it must be you, otherwise I shall think
it was the devil."
"I have not left the lodge, and when I went upstairs to answer to the
call of the masculine organ, I had the key; the door was shut. You
opened it; deny that!"
"Ma foi; it is true!"
"You confess, then?"
"I confess that I comprehend nothing. It's a game, and it is prettily
played."
"A game!" cried Pipelet, carried away by frenzied indignation. "Ah!
there you are again! I tell you, I, that all this conceals some
abominable plot; there is something under all this--a plot. The abyss
is hidden under flowers--they try to stun me to prevent my seeing the
precipice from which they wish to plunge me. It only remains for me to
place myself under the protection of the laws. Happily, the Lord is on
our side;" and Pipelet turned toward the door,
"Where are you going, old darling?"
"To the commissary's, to lodge my complaint, and this portrait as
proof of the persecutions I am overwhelmed with."
"But what will you complain of?"
"What will I complain of? How! my most inveterate enemy shall find
means by proceeding fraudulently to force me to have his portrait in
my house, even on my nuptial bed, and the magistrates will not take me
under the aegis? Give me the portrait, Anastasia--give it to me--not
the side where the painting is, the sight revolts me! The traitor
cannot deny it; it is in his hand; Cabrion to his good friend Pipelet,
for life. For life! Yes, that's it; for my life, without doubt, he
pursues me, and he will finish by having it. I live in continual
alarm: I shall think that this infernal being is here, always here--
under the floor, in the walls, in the ceiling! at night he sees me
reposing in the arms of my wife; in the daytime he is standing behind
me, always with his satanic smile; and who will tell me that even at
this moment he is not here, concealed somewhere, like a venomous
insect? Come, now! are you there, monster? Are you here?" cried
Pipelet, accompanying this furious imprecation with a circular
movement of the head, as if he had wished to interrogate all parts of
the lodge.
"I am here, good friend!" said most affectionately the well-known
voice of Cabrion.
These words seemed to come from the bottom of the alcove, merely from
the effects of ventriloquism; for the infernal artist was standing
outside the door of the lodge, enjoying the smallest details of this
scene; however, after having pronounced these last words, he prudently
made off, not without leaving, as we shall see, a new subject of rage,
astonishment, and meditation to his victim. Mrs. Pipelet, always
courageous and skeptical, looked under the bed, and in every hole and
corner, without success, while M. Pipelet, undone by the last blow,
had fallen on the chair in a state of utter despair.
"It's nothing, Alfred," said Anastasia; "the scoundrel was concealed
behind the door, and while I looked one way, he escaped the other.
Patience, I'll catch him one of these days, and then, let him look
out! he shall taste the handle of my broom!"
The door opened, and Mrs. Seraphin, housekeeper of Jacques Ferrand,
entered.
"Good-day, Mrs. Seraphin," said Mrs. Pipelet, who, wishing to conceal
from a stranger her domestic sorrows, assumed a very gracious and
smiling air; "what can I do to serve you?"
"First, tell me, then, what is your new sign?"
"New sign?"
"The little sign."
"A little sign?"
"Yes, black with red letters, which is nailed over the door of your
alley."
"In the street?"
"Why, yes, in the street, just over your door."
"My dear Mrs. Seraphin, may I never speak again, if I understand a
word; and you, old darling?" Alfred remained dumb.
"In truth, it concerns Mr. Pipelet," said Mrs. Seraphin; "he must
explain this to me."
Alfred uttered a sort of low, inarticulate groan, shaking his hat, a
pantomime signifying that Alfred found himself incapable of explaining
anything to others, being sufficiently preoccupied with an infinity of
problems, each one more difficult of solution than the other.
"Pay no attention, Mrs. Seraphin," said Anastasia. "Poor Alfred has
got the cramp; that makes him--"
"But what is this sign, then, of which you speak?"
"Perhaps our neighbor--"
"No, no; I tell you it is a little sign nailed over your door."
"Come, you want to joke."
"Not at all; I saw it as I came in. There is written on it in large
letters, 'Pipelet and Cabrion, Dealers in Friendship, etc. Apply
within.'"
"That's written over our door, do you hear, Alfred?"
Pipelet looked at Mrs. Seraphin with a wild stare. He did not
comprehend; he did not wish to comprehend.
"It is in the street--on a sign!" repeated Mrs. Pipelet, confounded at
this new audacity.
"Yes, for I have just read it. Then I said to myself, 'What a funny
thing! Pipelet is a cobbler by trade, and he informs the passer-by
that he is engaged in a _commerce d'amitie_ with Cabrion. What
does it signify? There is something concealed, it is clear; but as
the sign says inquire within, Mrs. Pipelet will explain it." "But look
there," cried Mrs. Seraphin, suddenly, "your husband looks as if he
was sick; take care, he will fall backward!"
Mrs. Pipelet received Alfred in her arms, in a fainting state. This
last blow had been too violent; the man nearly lost all consciousness
as he pronounced these words:
"The creature has publicly posted me."
"I told you, Mrs. Seraphin, Alfred has the cramp, without speaking of
an unchained blackguard, who undermines him with his sorry tricks. The
poor old darling cannot resist it! Happily, I have a drop of bitters
here; probably it will put him on his legs."
In fact, thanks to the infallible remedy of Mrs. Pipelet, Alfred by
degrees recovered his senses; but, alas! hardly had he come to, than
he had to undergo another trial.
A middle-aged person, neatly dressed, and with a pleasing face, opened
the door, and said, "I have just seen on a sign placed over this door,
'Pipelet and Cabrion, Dealers in Friendship.' Can you, if you please,
do me the honor to inform me what this means--you being the porter of
this house?"
"What this means!" cried Pipelet in a thundering voice, giving vent to
his indignation, too long suppressed; "this means that Mr. Cabrion is
an infamous impostor, sir!"
The man, at this sudden and furious explosion, drew back a step.
Alfred, much exasperated, with a fiery look and purple face, had
stretched his body half out of the lodge, and leaned his contracted
hands on the lower half of the door, while the figures of Mrs.
Seraphin and Anastasia could be vaguely seen in the background, in the
semi-obscure light of the lodge.
"Learn, sir," cried Pipelet, "that I have no dealings with this
scoundrel Cabrion, and that of friendship still less than any other!"
"It is true; and you must be very queer, old noodle that you are to
come and ask such a question," cried Madame Pipelet, sharply, showing
her quarrelsome face over the shoulder of her husband.
"Madame!" said the man sententiously, falling back another step,
"notices are made to be read; you put them up, I read; I have the
right to do so, but you have no right to say such rude things."
"Rude things yourself, you beggarly wretch!" replied Anastasia,
showing her teeth. "You are a low-bred fellow. Alfred, your boot-tree,
till I take the length of his muzzle, to teach him to come and play
the Joe Miller at his age, old clown!"
"Insults when one comes to ask the meaning of a notice placed over
your own door? It shall not pass over in this way, madame!"
"But, sir!" cried the unhappy porter.
"But, sir," answered the quiz, pretending to be angry, "be as friendly
as you please with your Mr. Cabrion, but zounds! don't stick it in
large letters under the noses of the passers-by! I find myself under
the necessity of telling you that you are a pitiful wretch, and that I
shall go and make my complaint to the authorities!" and the quiz
departed in a great rage.
"Anastasia!" said Mr. Pipelet, in a sorrowful tone, "I shall not
survive this, I feel it; I am wounded to death. I have no hope of
escaping him. You see, my name is publicly stuck up alongside of this
wretch. He dares to say that I have a friendly trade with him, and the
public will believe it. I inform you--I say it--I communicate it; it
is monstrous, it is enormous it is an infernal idea: but it must
finish; the measure is full; either he or I must fall in this
struggle!" and, overcoming his habitual apathy, Pipelet, determined on
a vigorous resolution, seized the portrait of Cabrion, and rushed
toward the door.
"Where are you going to, Alfred?"
"To the commissary's. At the same time I am going to tear down this
infamous sign; then with this portrait and this sign in my hand, I
will cry to the commissary, 'Defend me! avenge me! deliver me from
Cabrion!'"
"Well said, old darling; stir yourself, shake yourself; if you cannot
get the sign down, ask the next door to help you, and lend you his
ladder."
"Rascally Cabrion! Oh, if I had him, and I could do it, I'd fry him on
my stove. I should like so much to see him suffer. Yes, people are
guillotined who do not deserve it as much as he does. The wretch! I
should like to see him on the scaffold, the villain!"
Alfred showed under these circumstances the most sublime equanimity.
Notwithstanding his great causes of revenge against Cabrion, he had
the generosity to feel sentiments akin to pity for him.
"No," said he; "no; even if I could, I would not ask for his head."
"As for me, I would. Go do it!" cried the ferocious Anastasia.
"No," replied Alfred; "I do not like blood; but I have a right to
claim the perpetual seclusion of this evil-doer; my repose requires
it; my health commands it; the law accords me this reparation;
otherwise, I leave la France--ma belle France! That is what they'll
gain!"
And Alfred, swallowed up in his grief, walked majestically out of the
lodge, like one of those imposing victims of ancient fatality.