intolerable pain at the heart.
“Oh! here comes M. Villemot!” exclaimed La Sauvage.
“Mennesir Fillemod,” said poor Schmucke, “rebresent me.”
“I hurried here at once,” said Villemot. “I have come to tell you that
the will is completely in order; it will certainly be confirmed by the
court, and you will be put in possession. You will have a fine fortune.”
“_I?_ Ein fein vordune?” cried Schmucke, despairingly. That he of all
men should be suspected of caring for the money!
“And meantime what is the justice of the peace doing here with his wax
candles and his bits of tape?” asked La Sauvage.
“Oh, he is affixing seals.... Come, M. Schmucke, you have a right to be
present.”
“No--go in yourself.”
“But where is the use of the seals if M. Schmucke is in his own house
and everything belongs to him?” asked La Sauvage, doing justice in
feminine fashion, and interpreting the Code according to their fancy,
like one and all of her sex.
“M. Schmucke is not in possession, madame; he is in M. Pons’ house.
Everything will be his, no doubt; but the legatee cannot take possession
without an authorization--an order from the Tribunal. And if the
next-of-kin set aside by the testator should dispute the order, a
lawsuit is the result. And as nobody knows what may happen, everything
is sealed up, and the notaries representing either side proceed to draw
up an inventory during the delay prescribed by the law.... And there you
are!”
Schmucke, hearing such talk for the first time in his life, was
completely bewildered by it; his head sank down upon the back of his
chair--he could not support it, it had grown so heavy.
Villemot meanwhile went off to chat with the justice of the peace and
his clerk, assisting with professional coolness to affix the seals--a
ceremony which always involves some buffoonery and plentiful comments on
the objects thus secured, unless, indeed, one of the family happens to
be present. At length the party sealed up the chamber and returned to
the dining-room, whither the clerk betook himself. Schmucke watched the
mechanical operation which consists in setting the justice’s seal
at either end of a bit of tape stretched across the opening of a
folding-door; or, in the case of a cupboard or ordinary door, from edge
to edge above the door-handle.
“Now for this room,” said Fraisier, pointing to Schmucke’s bedroom,
which opened into the dining-room.
“But that is M. Schmucke’s own room,” remonstrated La Sauvage, springing
in front of the door.
“We found the lease among the papers,” Fraisier said ruthlessly; “there
was no mention of M. Schmucke in it; it is taken out in M. Pons’ name
only. The whole place, and every room in it, is a part of the estate.
And besides”--flinging open the door--“look here, monsieur le juge de la
paix, it is full of pictures.”
“So it is,” answered the justice of the peace, and Fraisier thereupon
gained his point.
“Wait a bit, gentlemen,” said Villemot. “Do you know that you are
turning the universal legatee out of doors, and as yet his right has not
been called in question?”
“Yes, it has,” said Fraisier; “we are opposing the transfer of the
property.”
“And upon what grounds?”
“You shall know that by and by, my boy,” Fraisier replied, banteringly.
“At this moment, if the legatee withdraws everything that he declares
to be his, we shall raise no objections, but the room itself will be
sealed. And M. Schmucke may lodge where he pleases.”
“No,” said Villemot; “M. Schmucke is going to stay in his room.”
“And how?”
“I shall demand an immediate special inquiry,” continued Villemot, “and
prove that we pay half the rent. You shall not turn us out. Take away
the pictures, decide on the ownership of the various articles, but here
my client stops--‘my boy.’”
“I shall go out!” the old musician suddenly said. He had recovered
energy during the odious dispute.
“You had better,” said Fraisier. “Your course will save expense to you,
for your contention would not be made good. The lease is evidence--”
“The lease! the lease!” cried Villemot, “it is a question of good
faith--”
“That could only be proved in a criminal case, by calling witnesses.--Do
you mean to plunge into experts’ fees and verifications, and orders
to show cause why judgment should not be given, and law proceedings
generally?”
“No, no!” cried Schmucke in dismay. “I shall turn out; I am used to
it--”
In practice Schmucke was a philosopher, an unconscious cynic, so greatly
had he simplified his life. Two pairs of shoes, a pair of boots,
a couple of suits of clothes, a dozen shirts, a dozen bandana
handkerchiefs, four waistcoats, a superb pipe given to him by Pons, with
an embroidered tobacco-pouch--these were all his belongings. Overwrought
by a fever of indignation, he went into his room and piled his clothes
upon a chair.
“All dese are mine,” he said, with simplicity worthy of Cincinnatus.
“Der biano is also mine.”
Fraisier turned to La Sauvage. “Madame, get help,” he said; “take that
piano out and put it on the landing.”
“You are too rough into the bargain,” said Villemot, addressing
Fraisier. “The justice of the peace gives orders here; he is supreme.”
“There are valuables in the room,” put in the clerk.
“And besides,” added the justice of the peace, “M. Schmucke is going out
of his own free will.”
“Did any one ever see such a client!” Villemot cried indignantly,
turning upon Schmucke. “You are as limp as a rag--”
“Vat dos it matter vere von dies?” Schmucke said as he went out. “Dese
men haf tiger faces.... I shall send somebody to vetch mein bits of
dings.”
“Where are you going, sir?”
“Vere it shall blease Gott,” returned Pons’ universal legatee with
supreme indifference.
“Send me word,” said Villemot.
Fraisier turned to the head-clerk. “Go after him,” he whispered.
Mme. Cantinet was left in charge, with a provision of fifty francs paid
out of the money that they found. The justice of the peace looked out;
there Schmucke stood in the courtyard looking up at the windows for the
last time.
“You have found a man of butter,” remarked the justice.
“Yes,” said Fraisier, “yes. The thing is as good as done. You need not
hesitate to marry your granddaughter to Poulain; he will be head-surgeon
at the Quinze-Vingts.” (The Asylum founded by St. Louis for three
hundred blind people.)
“We shall see.--Good-day, M. Fraisier,” said the justice of the peace
with a friendly air.
“There is a man with a head on his shoulders,” remarked the justice’s
clerk. “The dog will go a long way.”
By this time it was eleven o’clock. The old German went like an
automaton down the road along which Pons and he had so often walked
together. Wherever he went he saw Pons, he almost thought that Pons was
by his side; and so he reached the theatre just as his friend Topinard
was coming out of it after a morning spent in cleaning the lamps and
meditating on the manager’s tyranny.
“Oh, shoost der ding for me!” cried Schmucke, stopping his acquaintance.
“Dopinart! you haf a lodging someveres, eh?”
“Yes, sir.”
“A home off your own?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Are you villing to take me for ein poarder? Oh! I shall pay ver’
vell; I haf nine hundert vrancs of inkomm, und--I haf not ver’ long ter
lif.... I shall gif no drouble vatefer.... I can eat onydings--I only
vant to shmoke mein bipe. Und--you are der only von dat haf shed a tear
for Bons, mit me; und so, I lof you.”
“I should be very glad, sir; but, to begin with, M. Gaudissart has given
me a proper wigging--”
“_Vigging?_”
“That is one way of saying that he combed my hair for me.”
“_Combed your hair?_”
“He gave me a scolding for meddling in your affairs.... So we must be
very careful if you come to me. But I doubt whether you will stay when
you have seen the place; you do not know how we poor devils live.”
“I should rader der boor home of a goot-hearted mann dot haf mourned
Bons, dan der Duileries mit men dot haf ein tiger face.... I haf chust
left tigers in Bons’ house; dey vill eat up everydings--”
“Come with me, sir, and you shall see. But--well, anyhow, there is a
garret. Let us see what Mme. Topinard says.”
Schmucke followed like a sheep, while Topinard led the way into one of
the squalid districts which might be called the cancers of Paris--a spot
known as the Cite Bordin. It is a slum out of the Rue de Bondy, a double
row of houses run up by the speculative builder, under the shadow of the
huge mass of the Porte Saint-Martin theatre. The pavement at the higher
end lies below the level of the Rue de Bondy; at the lower it falls away
towards the Rue des Mathurins du Temple. Follow its course and you
find that it terminates in another slum running at right angles to the
first--the Cite Bordin is, in fact, a T-shaped blind alley. Its two
streets thus arranged contain some thirty houses, six or seven stories
high; and every story, and every room in every story, is a workshop and
a warehouse for goods of every sort and description, for this wart upon
the face of Paris is a miniature Faubourg Saint-Antoine. Cabinet-work
and brasswork, theatrical costumes, blown glass, painted porcelain--all
the various fancy goods known as _l’article Paris_ are made here. Dirty
and productive like commerce, always full of traffic--foot-passengers,
vans, and drays--the Cite Bourdin is an unsavory-looking neighborhood,
with a seething population in keeping with the squalid surroundings. It
is a not unintelligent artisan population, though the whole power of the
intellect is absorbed by the day’s manual labor. Topinard, like every
other inhabitant of the Cite Bourdin, lived in it for the sake of
comparatively low rent, the cause of its existence and prosperity. His
sixth floor lodging, in the second house to the left, looked out upon
the belt of green garden, still in existence, at the back of three or
four large mansions in the Rue de Bondy.
Topinard’s apartment consisted of a kitchen and two bedrooms. The first
was a nursery with two little deal bedsteads and a cradle in it, the
second was the bedroom, and the kitchen did duty as a dining-room.
Above, reached by a short ladder, known among builders as a
“trap-ladder,” there was a kind of garret, six feet high, with a
sash-window let into the roof. This room, given as a servants’ bedroom,
raised the Topinards’ establishment from mere “rooms” to the dignity of
a tenement, and the rent to a corresponding sum of four hundred francs.
An arched lobby, lighted from the kitchen by a small round window, did
duty as an ante-chamber, and filled the space between the bedroom, the
kitchen, and house doors--three doors in all. The rooms were paved with
bricks, and hung with a hideous wall-paper at threepence apiece; the
chimneypieces that adorned them were of the kind called _capucines_--a
shelf set on a couple of brackets painted to resemble wood. Here in
these three rooms dwelt five human beings, three of them children. Any
one, therefore, can imagine how the walls were covered with scores and
scratches so far as an infant arm can reach.
Rich people can scarcely realize the extreme simplicity of a poor man’s
kitchen. A Dutch oven, a kettle, a gridiron, a saucepan, two or three
dumpy cooking-pots, and a frying-pan--that was all. All the crockery in
the place, white and brown earthenware together, was not worth more than
twelve francs. Dinner was served on the kitchen table, which, with a
couple of chairs and a couple of stools, completed the furniture. The
stock of fuel was kept under the stove with a funnel-shaped chimney,
and in a corner stood the wash-tub in which the family linen lay, often
steeping over-night in soapsuds. The nursery ceiling was covered with
clothes-lines, the walls were variegated with theatrical placards and
wood-cuts from newspapers or advertisements. Evidently the eldest boy,
the owner of the school-books stacked in a corner, was left in
charge while his parents were absent at the theatre. In many a French
workingman’s family, so soon as a child reaches the age of six or seven,
it plays the part of mother to younger sisters and brothers.
From this bare outline, it may be imagined that the Topinards, to use
the hackneyed formula, were “poor but honest.” Topinard himself was
verging on forty; Mme. Topinard, once leader of a chorus--mistress, too,
it was said, of Gaudissart’s predecessor, was certainly thirty years
old. Lolotte had been a fine woman in her day; but the misfortunes of
the previous management had told upon her to such an extent, that it
had seemed to her to be both advisable and necessary to contract a
stage-marriage with Topinard. She did not doubt but that, as soon as
they could muster the sum of a hundred and fifty francs, her Topinard
would perform his vows agreeably to the civil law, were it only to
legitimize the three children, whom he worshiped. Meantime, Mme.
Topinard sewed for the theatre wardrobe in the morning; and with
prodigious effort, the brave couple made nine hundred francs per annum
between them.
“One more flight!” Topinard had twice repeated since they reached the
third floor. Schmucke, engulfed in his sorrow, did not so much as know
whether he was going up or coming down.
In another minute Topinard had opened the door; but before he appeared
in his white workman’s blouse Mme. Topinard’s voice rang from the
kitchen:
“There, there! children, be quiet! here comes papa!”
But the children, no doubt, did as they pleased with papa, for the
oldest member of the family, sitting astride a broomstick, continued to
command a charge of cavalry (a reminiscence of the Cirque-Olympique),
the second blew a tin trumpet, while the third did its best to keep up
with the main body of the army. Their mother was at work on a theatrical
costume.
“Be quiet! or I shall slap you!” shouted Topinard in a formidable
voice; then in an aside for Schmucke’s benefit--“Always have to say
that!--Here, little one,” he continued, addressing his Lolotte, “this is
M. Schmucke, poor M. Pons’ friend. He does not know where to go, and
he would like to live with us. I told him that we were not very
spick-and-span up here, that we lived on the sixth floor, and had only
the garret to offer him; but it was no use, he would come--”
Schmucke had taken the chair which the woman brought him, and the
children, stricken with sudden shyness, had gathered together to
give the stranger that mute, earnest, so soon-finished scrutiny
characteristic of childhood. For a child, like a dog, is wont to judge
by instinct rather than reason. Schmucke looked up; his eyes rested on
that charming little picture; he saw the performer on the tin trumpet, a
little five-year-old maiden with wonderful golden hair.
“She looks like ein liddle German girl,” said Schmucke, holding out his
arms to the child.
“Monsieur will not be very comfortable here,” said Mme. Topinard. “I
would propose that he should have our room at once, but I am obliged to
have the children near me.”
She opened the door as she spoke, and bade Schmucke come in. Such
splendor as their abode possessed was all concentrated here. Blue
cotton curtains with a white fringe hung from the mahogany bedstead, and
adorned the window; the chest of drawers, bureau, and chairs, though all
made of mahogany, were neatly kept. The clock and candlesticks on the
chimneypiece were evidently the gift of the bankrupt manager, whose
portrait, a truly frightful performance of Pierre Grassou’s, looked
down upon the chest of drawers. The children tried to peep in at the
forbidden glories.
“Monsieur might be comfortable in here,” said their mother.
“No, no,” Schmucke replied. “Eh! I haf not ver’ long to lif, I only vant
a corner to die in.”
The door was closed, and the three went up to the garret. “Dis is der
ding for me,” Schmucke cried at once. “Pefore I lifd mid Bons, I vas
nefer better lodged.”
“Very well. A truckle-bed, a couple of mattresses, a bolster, a pillow,
a couple of chairs, and a table--that is all that you need to buy. That
will not ruin you--it may cost a hundred and fifty francs, with the
crockeryware and strip of carpet for the bedside.”
Everything was settled--save the money, which was not forthcoming.
Schmucke saw that his new friends were very poor, and recollecting that
the theatre was only a few steps away, it naturally occurred to him
to apply to the manager for his salary. He went at once, and found
Gaudissart in his office. Gaudissart received him in the somewhat
stiffly polite manner which he reserved for professionals. Schmucke’s
demand for a month’s salary took him by surprise, but on inquiry he
found that it was due.
“Oh, confound it, my good man, a German can always count, even if he has
tears in his eyes.... I thought that you would have taken the thousand
francs that I sent you into account, as a final year’s salary, and that
we were quits.”
“We haf receifed nodings,” said Schmucke; “und gif I komm to you, it ees
because I am in der shtreet, und haf not ein benny. How did you send us
der bonus?”
“By your portress.”
“By Montame Zipod!” exclaimed Schmucke. “She killed Bons, she robbed
him, she sold him--she tried to purn his vill--she is a pad creature, a
monster!”
“But, my good man, how come you to be out in the street without a roof
over your head or a penny in your pocket, when you are the sole heir?
That does not necessarily follow, as the saying is.”
“They haf put me out at der door. I am a voreigner, I know nodings of
die laws.”
“Poor man!” thought Gaudissart, foreseeing the probable end of the
unequal contest.--“Listen,” he began, “do you know what you ought to do
in this business?”
“I haf ein mann of pizness!”
“Very good, come to terms at once with the next-of-kin; make them
pay you a lump sum of money down and an annuity, and you can live in
peace--”
“I ask noding more.”
“Very well. Let me arrange it for you,” said Gaudissart. Fraisier had
told him the whole story only yesterday, and he thought that he saw his
way to making interest out of the case with the young Vicomtesse Popinot
and her mother. He would finish a dirty piece of work, and some day he
would be a privy councillor, at least; or so he told himself.
“I gif you full powers.”
“Well. Let me see. Now, to begin with,” said Gaudissart, Napoleon of
the boulevard theatres, “to begin with, here are a hundred crowns--” (he
took fifteen louis from his purse and handed them to Schmucke).
“That is yours, on account of six months’ salary. If you leave the
theatre, you can repay me the money. Now for your budget. What are your
yearly expenses? How much do you want to be comfortable? Come, now,
scheme out a life for a Sardanapalus--”
“I only need two suits of clothes, von for der vinter, von for der
sommer.”
“Three hundred francs,” said Gaudissart.
“Shoes. Vour bairs.”
“Sixty francs.”
“Shtockings--”
“A dozen pairs--thirty-six francs.”
“Half a tozzen shirts.”
“Six calico shirts, twenty-four francs; as many linen shirts,
forty-eight francs; let us say seventy-two. That makes four hundred and
sixty-eight francs altogether.--Say five hundred, including cravats and
pocket-handkerchiefs; a hundred francs for the laundress--six hundred.
And now, how much for your board--three francs a day?”
“No, it ees too much.”
“After all, you want hats; that brings it to fifteen hundred. Five
hundred more for rent; that makes two thousand. If I can get two
thousand francs per annum for you, are you willing?... Good securities.”
“Und mein tobacco.”
“Two thousand four hundred, then.... Oh! Papa Schmucke, do you call
that tobacco? Very well, the tobacco shall be given in.--So that is two
thousand four hundred francs per annum.”
“Dat ees not all! I should like som monny.”
“Pin-money!--Just so. Oh, these Germans! And calls himself an innocent,
the old Robert Macaire!” thought Gaudissart. Aloud he said, “How much do
you want? But this must be the last.”
“It ees to bay a zacred debt.”
“A debt!” said Gaudissart to himself. What a shark it is! He is worse
than an eldest son. He will invent a bill or two next! We must cut this
short. This Fraisier cannot take large views.--What debt is this, my
good man? Speak out.”
“Dere vas but von mann dot haf mourned Bons mit me.... He haf a tear
liddle girl mit wunderschones haar; it vas as if I saw mein boor
Deutschland dot I should nefer haf left.... Baris is no blace for die
Germans; dey laugh at dem” (with a little nod as he spoke, and the air
of a man who knows something of life in this world below).
“He is off his head,” Gaudissart said to himself. And a sudden pang of
pity for this poor innocent before him brought a tear to the manager’s
eyes.
“Ah! you understand, mennesir le directeur! Ver’ goot. Dat mann mit die
liddle taughter is Dobinard, vat tidies der orchestra and lights die
lamps. Bons vas fery fond of him, und helped him. He vas der only von
dat accombanied mein only friend to die church und to die grafe.... I
vant dree tausend vrancs for him, und dree tausend for die liddle von--”
“Poor fellow!” said Gaudissart to himself.
Rough, self-made man though he was, he felt touched by this nobleness of
nature, by a gratitude for a mere trifle, as the world views it; though
for the eyes of this divine innocence the trifle, like Bossuet’s cup of
water, was worth more than the victories of great captains. Beneath all
Gaudissart’s vanity, beneath the fierce desire to succeed in life at all
costs, to rise to the social level of his old friend Popinot, there lay
a warm heart and a kindly nature. Wherefore he canceled his too hasty
judgments and went over to Schmucke’s side.
“You shall have it all! But I will do better still, my dear Schmucke.
Topinard is a good sort--”
“Yes. I haf chust peen to see him in his boor home, vere he ees happy
mit his children--”
“I will give him the cashier’s place. Old Baudrand is going to leave.”
“Ah! Gott pless you!” cried Schmucke.
“Very well, my good, kind fellow, meet me at Berthier’s office about
four o’clock this afternoon. Everything shall be ready, and you shall
be secured from want for the rest of your days. You shall draw your six
thousand francs, and you shall have the same salary with Garangeot that
you used to have with Pons.”
“No,” Schmucke answered. “I shall not lif.... I haf no heart for
anydings; I feel that I am attacked--”
“Poor lamb!” Gaudissart muttered to himself as the German took his
leave. “But, after all, one lives on mutton; and, as the sublime
Beranger says, ‘Poor sheep! you were made to be shorn,’” and he hummed
the political squib by way of giving vent to his feelings. Then he rang
for the office-boy.
“Call my carriage,” he said.
“Rue de Hanovre,” he told the coachman.
The man of ambitions by this time had reappeared; he saw the way to the
Council of State lying straight before him.
And Schmucke? He was busy buying flowers and cakes for Topinard’s
children, and went home almost joyously.
“I am gifing die bresents...” he said, and he smiled. It was the first
smile for three months, but any one who had seen Schmucke’s face would
have shuddered to see it there.
“But dere is ein condition--”
“It is too kind of you, sir,” said the mother.
“De liddle girl shall gif me a kiss and put die flowers in her hair,
like die liddle German maidens--”
“Olga, child, do just as the gentleman wishes,” said the mother,
assuming an air of discipline.
“Do not scold mein liddle German girl,” implored Schmucke. It seemed to
him that the little one was his dear Germany. Topinard came in.
“Three porters are bringing up the whole bag of tricks,” he said.
“Oh! Here are two hundred vrancs to bay for eferydings...” said
Schmucke. “But, mein friend, your Montame Dobinard is ver’ nice; you
shall marry her, is it not so? I shall gif you tausend crowns, and die
liddle vone shall haf tausend crowns for her toury, and you shall infest
it in her name.... Und you are not to pe ein zuper any more--you are to
pe de cashier at de teatre--”
“_I_?--instead of old Baudrand?”
“Yes.”
“Who told you so?”
“Mennesir Gautissart!”
“Oh! it is enough to send one wild with joy!... Eh! I say, Rosalie, what
a rumpus there will be at the theatre! But it is not possible--”
“Our benefactor must not live in a garret--”
“Pshaw! for die few tays dat I haf to lif it ees fery komfortable,” said
Schmucke. “Goot-pye; I am going to der zemetery, to see vat dey haf don
mit Bons, und to order som flowers for his grafe.”