us at the church.”
The six persons thus assembled went down the staircase.
The cold-blooded lawyer remained a moment to speak to the two women on
the landing. “Stop here, and let nobody come in,” he said, “especially
if you wish to remain in charge, Mme. Cantinet. Aha! two francs a day,
you know!”
By a coincidence in nowise extraordinary in Paris, two hearses were
waiting at the door, and two coffins standing under the archway; Cibot’s
funeral and the solitary state in which Pons was lying was made even
more striking in the street. Schmucke was the only mourner that followed
Pons’ coffin; Schmucke, supported by one of the undertaker’s men, for he
tottered at every step. From the Rue de Normandie to the Rue d’Orleans
and the Church of Saint-Francois the two funerals went between a double
row of curious onlookers for everything (as was said before) makes a
sensation in the quarter. Every one remarked the splendor of the white
funeral car, with a big embroidered P suspended on a hatchment, and the
one solitary mourner behind it; while the cheap bier that came after it
was followed by an immense crowd. Happily, Schmucke was so bewildered by
the throng of idlers and the rows of heads in the windows, that he heard
no remarks and only saw the faces through a mist of tears.
“Oh, it is the nutcracker!” said one, “the musician, you know--”
“Who can the pall-bearers be?”
“Pooh! play-actors.”
“I say, just look at poor old Cibot’s funeral. There is one worker the
less. What a man! he could never get enough of work!”
“He never went out.”
“He never kept Saint Monday.”
“How fond he was of his wife!”
“Ah! There is an unhappy woman!”
Remonencq walked behind his victim’s coffin. People condoled with him on
the loss of his neighbor.
The two funerals reached the church. Cantinet and the doorkeeper saw
that no beggars troubled Schmucke. Villemot had given his word that
Pons’ heir should be left in peace; he watched over his client, and gave
the requisite sums; and Cibot’s humble bier, escorted by sixty or eighty
persons, drew all the crowd after it to the cemetery. At the church door
Pons’ funeral possession mustered four mourning-coaches, one for the
priest and three for the relations; but one only was required, for the
representative of the firm of Sonet departed during mass to give notice
to his principal that the funeral was on the way, so that the design
for the monument might be ready for the survivor at the gates of the
cemetery. A single coach sufficed for Fraisier, Villemot, Schmucke, and
Topinard; but the remaining two, instead of returning to the undertaker,
followed in the procession to Pere-Lachaise--a useless procession, not
unfrequently seen; there are always too many coaches when the dead are
unknown beyond their own circle and there is no crowd at the funeral.
Dear, indeed, the dead must have been in their lifetime if relative or
friend will go with them so far as the cemetery in this Paris, where
every one would fain have twenty-five hours in the day. But with the
coachmen it is different; they lose their tips if they do not make the
journey; so, empty or full, the mourning coaches go to the church and
cemetery and return to the house for gratuities. A death is a sort
of drinking-fountain for an unimagined crowd of thirsty mortals. The
attendants at the church, the poor, the undertaker’s men, the drivers
and sextons, are creatures like sponges that dip into a hearse and come
out again saturated.
From the church door, where he was beset with a swarm of beggars
(promptly dispersed by the beadle), to Pere-Lachaise, poor Schmucke went
as criminals went in old times from the Palais de Justice to the
Place de Greve. It was his own funeral that he followed, clinging to
Topinard’s hand, to the one living creature besides himself who felt a
pang of real regret for Pons’ death.
As for Topinard, greatly touched by the honor of the request to act as
pall-bearer, content to drive in a carriage, the possessor of a new pair
of gloves,--it began to dawn upon him that this was to be one of the
great days of his life. Schmucke was driven passively along the road, as
some unlucky calf is driven in a butcher’s cart to the slaughter-house.
Fraisier and Villemot sat with their backs to the horses. Now, as those
know whose sad fortune it has been to accompany many of their friends to
their last resting-place, all hypocrisy breaks down in the coach during
the journey (often a very long one) from the church to the eastern
cemetery, to that one of the burying-grounds of Paris in which all
vanities, all kinds of display, are met, so rich is it in sumptuous
monuments. On these occasions those who feel least begin to talk
soonest, and in the end the saddest listen, and their thoughts are
diverted.
“M. le President had already started for the Court.” Fraisier told
Villemot, “and I did not think it necessary to tear him away from
business; he would have come too late, in any case. He is the
next-of-kin; but as he has been disinherited, and M. Schmucke gets
everything, I thought that if his legal representative were present it
would be enough.”
Topinard lent an ear to this.
“Who was the queer customer that took the fourth corner?” continued
Fraisier.
“He is an agent for a firm of monumental stone-masons. He would like an
order for a tomb, on which he proposes to put three sculptured marble
figures--Music, Painting, and Sculpture shedding tears over the
deceased.”
“It is an idea,” said Fraisier; “the old gentleman certainly deserved
that much; but the monument would cost seven or eight hundred francs.”
“Oh! quite that!”
“If M. Schmucke gives the order, it cannot affect the estate. You might
eat up a whole property with such expenses.”
“There would be a lawsuit, but you would gain it--”
“Very well,” said Fraisier, “then it will be his affair.--It would be a
nice practical joke to play upon the monument-makers,” Fraisier added in
Villemot’s ear; “for if the will is upset (and I can answer for that),
or if there is no will at all, who would pay them?”
Villemot grinned like a monkey, and the pair began to talk
confidentially, lowering their voices; but the man from the theatre,
with his wits and senses sharpened in the world behind the scenes, could
guess at the nature of their discourse; in spite of the rumbling of
the carriage and other hindrances, he began to understand that these
representatives of justice were scheming to plunge poor Schmucke into
difficulties; and when at last he heard the ominous word “Clichy,” the
honest and loyal servitor of the stage made up his mind to watch over
Pons’ friend.
At the cemetery, where three square yards of ground had been purchased
through the good offices of the firm of Sonet (Villemot having announced
Schmucke’s intention of erecting a magnificent monument), the master of
ceremonies led Schmucke through a curious crowd to the grave into which
Pons’ coffin was about to be lowered; but here, at the sight of the
square hole, the four men waiting with ropes to lower the bier, and the
clergy saying the last prayer for the dead at the grave-side, something
clutched tightly at the German’s heart. He fainted away.
Sonet’s agent and M. Sonet himself came to help Topinard to carry
poor Schmucke into the marble-works hard by, where Mme. Sonet and Mme.
Vitelot (Sonet’s partner’s wife) were eagerly prodigal of efforts to
revive him. Topinard stayed. He had seen Fraisier in conversation with
Sonet’s agent, and Fraisier, in his opinion, had gallows-bird written on
his face.
An hour later, towards half-past two o’clock, the poor, innocent German
came to himself. Schmucke thought that he had been dreaming for the past
two days; if he could only wake, he should find Pons still alive. So
many wet towels had been laid on his forehead, he had been made to
inhale salts and vinegar to such an extent, that he opened his eyes at
last. Mme. Sonet make him take some meat-soup, for they had put the pot
on the fire at the marble-works.
“Our clients do not often take things to heart like this; still, it
happens once in a year or two--”
At last Schmucke talked of returning to the Rue de Normandie, and at
this Sonet began at once.
“Here is the design, sir,” he said; “Vitelot drew it expressly for you,
and sat up last night to do it.... And he has been happily inspired, it
will look fine--”
“One of the finest in Pere-Lachaise!” said the little Mme. Sonet. “But
you really ought to honor the memory of a friend who left you all his
fortune.”
The design, supposed to have been drawn on purpose, had, as a matter
of fact, been prepared for de Marsay, the famous cabinet minister.
His widow, however, had given the commission to Stidmann; people were
disgusted with the tawdriness of the project, and it was refused. The
three figures at that period represented the three days of July which
brought the eminent minister to power. Subsequently, Sonet and Vitelot
had turned the Three Glorious Days--“_les trois glorieuses_”--into the
Army, Finance, and the Family, and sent in the design for the sepulchre
of the late lamented Charles Keller; and here again Stidmann took the
commission. In the eleven years that followed, the sketch had been
modified to suit all kinds of requirements, and now in Vitelot’s fresh
tracing they reappeared as Music, Sculpture, and Painting.
“It is a mere trifle when you think of the details and cost of setting
it up; for it will take six months,” said Vitelot. “Here is the estimate
and the order-form--seven thousand francs, sketch in plaster not
included.”
“If M. Schmucke would like marble,” put in Sonet (marble being his
special department), “it would cost twelve thousand francs, and monsieur
would immortalize himself as well as his friend.”
Topinard turned to Vitelot.
“I have just heard that they are going to dispute the will,” he
whispered, “and the relatives are likely to come by their property.
Go and speak to M. Camusot, for this poor, harmless creature has not a
farthing.”
“This is the kind of customer that you always bring us,” said Mme.
Vitelot, beginning a quarrel with the agent.
Topinard led Schmucke away, and they returned home on foot to the Rue de
Normandie, for the mourning-coaches had been sent back.
“Do not leaf me,” Schmucke said, when Topinard had seen him safe into
Mme. Sauvage’s hands, and wanted to go.
“It is four o’clock, dear M. Schmucke. I must go home to dinner. My wife
is a box-opener--she will not know what has become of me. The theatre
opens at a quarter to six, you know.”
“Yes, I know... but remember dat I am alone in die earth, dat I haf
no friend. You dat haf shed a tear for Bons enliden me; I am in teep
tarkness, und Bons said dat I vas in der midst of shcoundrels.”
“I have seen that plainly already; I have just prevented them from
sending you to Clichy.”
“_Gligy!_” repeated Schmucke; “I do not understand.”
“Poor man! Well, never mind, I will come to you. Good-bye.”
“Goot-bye; komm again soon,” said Schmucke, dropping half-dead with
weariness.
“Good-bye, mosieu,” said Mme. Sauvage, and there was something in her
tone that struck Topinard.
“Oh, come, what is the matter now?” he asked, banteringly. “You are
attitudinizing like a traitor in a melodrama.”
“Traitor yourself! Why have you come meddling here? Do you want to have
a hand in the master’s affairs, and swindle him, eh?”
“Swindle him!... Your very humble servant!” Topinard answered with
superb disdain. “I am only a poor super at a theatre, but I am something
of an artist, and you may as well know that I never asked anything of
anybody yet! Who asked anything of you? Who owes you anything? eh, old
lady!”
“You are employed at a theatre, and your name is--?”
“Topinard, at your service.”
“Kind regards to all at home,” said La Sauvage, “and my compliments to
your missus, if you are married, mister.... That was all I wanted to
know.”
“Why, what is the matter, dear?” asked Mme. Cantinet, coming out.
“This, child--stop here and look after the dinner while I run round to
speak to monsieur.”
“He is down below, talking with poor Mme. Cibot, that is crying her eyes
out,” said Mme. Cantinet.
La Sauvage dashed down in such headlong haste that the stairs trembled
beneath her tread.
“Monsieur!” she called, and drew him aside a few paces to point out
Topinard.
Topinard was just going away, proud at heart to have made some return
already to the man who had done him so many kindnesses. He had saved
Pons’ friend from a trap, by a stratagem from that world behind the
scenes in which every one has more or less ready wit. And within himself
he vowed to protect a musician in his orchestra from future snares set
for his simple sincerity.
“Do you see that little wretch?” said La Sauvage. “He is a kind of
honest man that has a mind to poke his nose into M. Schmucke’s affairs.”
“Who is he?” asked Fraisier.
“Oh! he is a nobody.”
“In business there is no such thing as a nobody.”
“Oh, he is employed at the theatre,” said she; “his name is Topinard.”
“Good, Mme. Sauvage! Go on like this, and you shall have your
tobacconist’s shop.”
And Fraisier resumed his conversation with Mme. Cibot.
“So I say, my dear client, that you have not played openly and
above-board with me, and that one is not bound in any way to a partner
who cheats.”
“And how have I cheated you?” asked La Cibot, hands on hips. “Do you
think that you will frighten me with your sour looks and your frosty
airs? You look about for bad reasons for breaking your promises, and
you call yourself an honest man! Do you know what you are? You are a
blackguard! Yes! yes! scratch your arm; but just pocket that--”
“No words, and keep your temper, dearie. Listen to me. You have been
feathering your nest.... I found this catalogue this morning while we
were getting ready for the funeral; it is all in M. Pons’ handwriting,
and made out in duplicate. And as it chanced, my eyes fell on this--”
And opening the catalogue, he read:
“No. 7. _Magnificent portrait painted on marble, by Sebastian del
Piombo, in 1546. Sold by a family who had it removed from Terni
Cathedral. The picture, which represents a Knight-Templar kneeling
in prayer, used to hang above a tomb of the Rossi family with a
companion portrait of a Bishop, afterwards purchased by an
Englishman. The portrait might be attributed to Raphael, but for
the date. This example is, to my mind, superior to the portrait of
Baccio Bandinelli in the Musee; the latter is a little hard, while
the Templar, being painted upon ‘lavagna,’ or slate, has preserved
its freshness of coloring._”
“When I come to look for No. 7,” continued Fraisier, “I find a portrait
of a lady, signed ‘Chardin,’ without a number on it! I went through the
pictures with the catalogue while the master of ceremonies was making up
the number of pall-bearers, and found that eight of those indicated
as works of capital importance by M. Pons had disappeared, and
eight paintings of no special merit, and without numbers, were
there instead.... And finally, one was missing altogether, a little
panel-painting by Metzu, described in the catalogue as a masterpiece.”
“And was _I_ in charge of the pictures?” demanded La Cibot.
“No; but you were in a position of trust. You were M. Pons’ housekeeper,
you looked after his affairs, and he has been robbed--”
“Robbed! Let me tell you this, sir: M. Schmucke sold the pictures, by M.
Pons’ orders, to meet expenses.”
“And to whom?”
“To Messrs. Elie Magus and Remonencq.”
“For how much?”
“I am sure I do not remember.”
“Look here, my dear madame; you have been feathering your nest, and very
snugly. I shall keep an eye upon you; I have you safe. Help me, I will
say nothing! In any case, you know that since you deemed it expedient to
plunder M. le President Camusot, you ought not to expect anything from
_him_.”
“I was sure that this would all end in smoke, for me,” said La Cibot,
mollified by the words “I will say nothing.”
Remonencq chimed in at this point.
“Here are you finding fault with Mme. Cibot; that is not right!” he
said. “The pictures were sold by private treaty between M. Pons, M.
Magus, and me. We waited for three days before we came to terms with the
deceased; he slept on his pictures. We took receipts in proper form; and
if we gave Madame Cibot a few forty-franc pieces, it is the custom of
the trade--we always do so in private houses when we conclude a bargain.
Ah! my dear sir, if you think to cheat a defenceless woman, you will not
make a good bargain! Do you understand, master lawyer?--M. Magus rules
the market, and if you do not come down off the high horse, if you do
not keep your word to Mme. Cibot, I shall wait till the collection is
sold, and you shall see what you will lose if you have M. Magus and
me against you; we can get the dealers in a ring. Instead of realizing
seven or eight hundred thousand francs, you will not so much as make two
hundred thousand.”
“Good, good, we shall see. We are not going to sell; or if we do, it
will be in London.”
“We know London,” said Remonencq. “M. Magus is as powerful there as at
Paris.”
“Good-day, madame; I shall sift these matters to the bottom,” said
Fraisier--“unless you continue to do as I tell you” he added.
“You little pickpocket!--”
“Take care! I shall be a justice of the peace before long.” And with
threats understood to the full upon either side, they separated.
“Thank you, Remonencq!” said La Cibot; “it is very pleasant to a poor
widow to find a champion.”
Towards ten o’clock that evening, Gaudissart sent for Topinard.
The manager was standing with his back to the fire, in a Napoleonic
attitude--a trick which he had learned since be began to command his
army of actors, dancers, _figurants_, musicians, and stage carpenters.
He grasped his left-hand brace with his right hand, always thrust into
his waistcoat; the head was flung far back, his eyes gazed out into
space.
“Ah! I say, Topinard, have you independent means?”
“No, sir.”
“Are you on the lookout to better yourself somewhere else?”
“No, sir--” said Topinard, with a ghastly countenance.
“Why, hang it all, your wife takes the first row of boxes out of respect
to my predecessor, who came to grief; I gave you the job of cleaning the
lamps in the wings in the daytime, and you put out the scores. And that
is not all, either. You get twenty sous for acting monsters and managing
devils when a hell is required. There is not a super that does not covet
your post, and there are those that are jealous of you, my friend; you
have enemies in the theatre.”
“Enemies!” repeated Topinard.
“And you have three children; the oldest takes children’s parts at fifty
centimes--”
“Sir!--”
“You want to meddle in other people’s business, and put your finger
into a will case.--Why, you wretched man, you would be crushed like an
egg-shell! My patron is His Excellency, Monseigneur le Comte Popinot, a
clever man and a man of high character, whom the King in his wisdom
has summoned back to the privy council. This statesman, this great
politician, has married his eldest son to a daughter of M. le President
de Marville, one of the foremost men among the high courts of justice;
one of the leading lights of the law-courts. Do you know the law-courts?
Very good. Well, he is cousin and heir to M. Pons, to our old conductor
whose funeral you attended this morning. I do not blame you for going
to pay the last respects to him, poor man.... But if you meddle in M.
Schmucke’s affairs, you will lose your place. I wish very well to M.
Schmucke, but he is in a delicate position with regard to the heirs--and
as the German is almost nothing to me, and the President and Count
Popinot are a great deal, I recommend you to leave the worthy German to
get out of his difficulties by himself. There is a special Providence
that watches over Germans, and the part of deputy guardian-angel would
not suit you at all. Do you see? Stay as you are--you cannot do better.”
“Very good, monsieur le directeur,” said Topinard, much distressed. And
in this way Schmucke lost the protector sent to him by fate, the one
creature that shed a tear for Pons, the poor super for whose return he
looked on the morrow.
Next morning poor Schmucke awoke to a sense of his great and heavy loss.
He looked round the empty rooms. Yesterday and the day before yesterday
the preparations for the funeral had made a stir and bustle which
distracted his eyes; but the silence which follows the day, when the
friend, father, son, or loved wife has been laid in the grave--the dull,
cold silence of the morrow is terrible, is glacial. Some irresistible
force drew him to Pons’ chamber, but the sight of it was more than the
poor man could bear; he shrank away and sat down in the dining-room,
where Mme. Sauvage was busy making breakfast ready.
Schmucke drew his chair to the table, but he could eat nothing. A
sudden, somewhat sharp ringing of the door-bell rang through the house,
and Mme. Cantinet and Mme. Sauvage allowed three black-coated personages
to pass. First came Vitel, the justice of the peace, with his highly
respectable clerk; third was Fraisier, neither sweeter nor milder for
the disappointing discovery of a valid will canceling the formidable
instrument so audaciously stolen by him.
“We have come to affix seals on the property,” the justice of the peace
said gently, addressing Schmucke. But the remark was Greek to Schmucke;
he gazed in dismay at his three visitors.
“We have come at the request of M. Fraisier, legal representative of M.
Camusot de Marville, heir of the late Pons--” added the clerk.
“The collection is here in this great room, and in the bedroom of the
deceased,” remarked Fraisier.
“Very well, let us go into the next room.--Pardon us, sir; do not let us
interrupt with your breakfast.”
The invasion struck an icy chill of terror into poor Schmucke.
Fraisier’s venomous glances seemed to possess some magnetic influence
over his victims, like the power of a spider over a fly.
“M. Schmucke understood how to turn a will, made in the presence of
a notary, to his own advantage,” he said, “and he surely must have
expected some opposition from the family. A family does not allow itself
to be plundered by a stranger without some protest; and we shall
see, sir, which carries the day--fraud and corruption or the rightful
heirs.... We have a right as next of kin to affix seals, and seals shall
be affixed. I mean to see that the precaution is taken with the utmost
strictness.”
“Ach, mein Gott! how haf I offended against Hefn?” cried the innocent
Schmucke.
“There is a good deal of talk about you in the house,” said La Sauvage.
“While you were asleep, a little whipper-snapper in a black suit came
here, a puppy that said he was M. Hannequin’s head-clerk, and must see
you at all costs; but as you were asleep and tired out with the funeral
yesterday, I told him that M. Villemot, Tabareau’s head-clerk, was
acting for you, and if it was a matter of business, I said, he might
speak to M. Villemot. ‘Ah, so much the better!’ the youngster said. ‘I
shall come to an understanding with him. We will deposit the will at the
Tribunal, after showing it to the President.’ So at that, I told him to
ask M. Villemot to come here as soon as he could.--Be easy, my dear sir,
there are those that will take care of you. They shall not shear the
fleece off your back. You will have some one that has beak and claws.
M. Villemot will give them a piece of his mind. I have put myself in a
passion once already with that abominable hussy, La Cibot, a porter’s
wife that sets up to judge her lodgers, forsooth, and insists that you
have filched the money from the heirs; you locked M. Pons up, she says,
and worked upon him till he was stark, staring mad. She got as good as
she gave, though, the wretched woman. ‘You are a thief and a bad lot,’
I told her; ‘you will get into the police-courts for all the things that
you have stolen from the gentlemen,’ and she shut up.”
The clerk came out to speak to Schmucke.
“Would you wish to be present, sir, when the seals are affixed in the
next room?”
“Go on, go on,” said Schmucke; “I shall pe allowed to die in beace, I
bresume?”
“Oh, under any circumstances a man has a right to die,” the clerk
answered, laughing; “most of our business relates to wills. But, in my
experience, the universal legatee very seldom follows the testator to
the tomb.”