Cousin Pons by Honoré de Balzac (which ebook reader txt) 📕

said confidentially, "I am empowered to offer you forty francs."

Mme. Sauvage grew placable. "Very well, let me have your address," said she.

Schmucke meantime being left to himself, and feeling the stronger for the soup and bread that he had been forced to swallow, returned at once to Pons' rooms, and to his prayers. He had lost himself in the fathomless depths of sorrow, when a voice sounding in his ears drew him back from the abyss of grief, and a young man in a suit of black returned for the eleventh time to the charge, pulling the poor, tortured victim's coatsleeve until he listened.

"Sir!" said he.

"Vat ees it now?"

"Sir! we owe a supreme discovery to Dr. Gannal; we do not dispute his fame; he has worked miracles of Egypt afresh; but there have been improvements made upon his system. We have obtained surprising results. So, if you would like to see your friend again, as he was when he was alive--"

"See him again!" cried Schmucke. "Shall he speak to me?"

"Not exactly. Speech is the only thing wanting," continued the embalmer's agent. "But he will remain as he is after embalming for all eternity. The operation is over in a few seconds. Just an incision in the carotid artery and an injection.--But it is high time; if you wait one single quarter of an hour, sir, you will not have the sweet satisfaction of preserving the body...."

"Go to der teufel!... Bons is ein spirit--und dat spirit is in hefn."

"That man has no gratitude in his composition," remarked the youthful agent of one of the famous Gannal's rivals; "he will not embalm his friend."

The words were spoken under the archway, and addressed to La Cibot, who had just submitted her beloved to the process.

"What would you have, sir!" she said. "He is the heir, the universal legatee. As soon as they get what they want, the dead are nothing to them."

An hour later, Schmucke saw Mme. Sauvage come into the room, followed by another man in a suit of black, a workman, to all appearance.

"Cantinet has been so obliging as to send this gentleman, sir," she said; "he is coffin-maker to the parish."

The coffin-maker made his bow with a sympathetic and compassionate air, but none the less he had a business-like look, and seemed to know that he was indispensable. He turned an expert's eye upon the dead.

"How does the gentleman wish 'it' to be made? Deal, plain oak, or oak lead-lined? Oak with a lead lining is the best style. The body is a stock size,"--he felt for the feet, and proceeded to take the measure--"one metre seventy!" he added. "You will be thinking of ordering the funeral service at the church, sir, no doubt?"

Schmucke looked at him as a dangerous madman might look before striking a blow. La Sauvage put in a word.

"You ought to find somebody to look after all these things," she said.

"Yes----" the victim murmured at length.

"Shall I fetch M. Tabareau?--for you will have a good deal on your hands before long. M. Tabareau is the most honest man in the quarter, you see."

"Yes. Mennesir Dapareau! Somepody vas speaking of him chust now--" said Schmucke, completely beaten.

"Very well. You can be quiet, sir, and give yourself up to grief, when you have seen your deputy."

It was nearly two o'clock when M. Tabareau's head-clerk, a young man who aimed at a bailiff's career, modestly presented himself. Youth has wonderful privileges; no one is alarmed by youth. This young man Villemot by name, sat down by Schmucke's side and waited his opportunity to speak. His diffidence touched Schmucke very much.

"I am M. Tabareau's head-clerk, sir," he said; "he sent me here to take charge of your interests, and to superintend the funeral arrangements. Is this your wish?"

"You cannot safe my life, I haf not long to lif; but you vill leaf me in beace!"

"Oh! you shall not be disturbed," said Villemot.

"Ver' goot. Vat must I do for dat?"

"Sign this paper appointing M. Tabareau to act for you in all matters relating to the settlement of the affairs of the deceased."

"Goot! gif it to me," said Schmucke, anxious only to sign it at once.

"No, I must read it over to you first."

"Read it ofer."

Schmucke paid not the slightest attention to the reading of the power of attorney, but he set his name to it. The young clerk took Schmucke's orders for the funeral, the interment, and the burial service; undertaking that he should not be troubled again in any way, nor asked for money.

"I vould gif all dat I haf to be left in beace," said the unhappy man. And once more he knelt beside the dead body of his friend.

Fraisier had triumphed. Villemot and La Sauvage completed the circle which he had traced about Pons' heir.

There is no sorrow that sleep cannot overcome. Towards the end of the day La Sauvage, coming in, found Schmucke stretched asleep at the bed-foot. She carried him off, put him to bed, tucked him in maternally, and till the morning Schmucke slept.

When he awoke, or rather when the truce was over and he again became conscious of his sorrows, Pons' coffin lay under the gateway in such a state as a third-class funeral may claim, and Schmucke, seeking vainly for his friend, wandered from room to room, across vast spaces, as it seemed to him, empty of everything save hideous memories. La Sauvage took him in hand, much as a nurse manages a child; she made him take his breakfast before starting for the church; and while the poor sufferer forced himself to eat, she discovered, with lamentations worthy of Jeremiah, that he had not a black coat in his possession. La Cibot took entire charge of his wardrobe; since Pons fell ill, his apparel, like his dinner, had been reduced to the lowest terms--to a couple of coats and two pairs of trousers.

"And you are going just as you are to M. Pons' funeral? It is an unheard-of thing; the whole quarter will cry shame upon us!"

"Und how vill you dat I go?"

"Why, in mourning--"

"Mourning!"

"It is the proper thing."

"Der bropper ding!... Confound all dis stupid nonsense!" cried poor Schmucke, driven to the last degree of exasperation which a childlike soul can reach under stress of sorrow.

"Why, the man is a monster of ingratitude!" said La Sauvage, turning to a personage who just then appeared. At the sight of this functionary Schmucke shuddered. The newcomer wore a splendid suit of black, black knee-breeches, black silk stockings, a pair of white cuffs, an extremely correct white muslin tie, and white gloves. A silver chain with a coin attached ornamented his person. A typical official, stamped with the official expression of decorous gloom, an ebony wand in his hand by way of insignia of office, he stood waiting with a three-cornered hat adorned with the tricolor cockade under his arm.

"I am the master of the ceremonies," this person remarked in a subdued voice.

Accustomed daily to superintend funerals, to move among families plunged in one and the same kind of tribulation, real or feigned, this man, like the rest of his fraternity, spoke in hushed and soothing tones; he was decorous, polished, and formal, like an allegorical stone figure of Death.

Schmucke quivered through every nerve as if he were confronting his executioner.

"Is this gentleman the son, brother, or father of the deceased?" inquired the official.

"I am all dat and more pesides--I am his friend," said Schmucke through a torrent of weeping.

"Are you his heir?"

"Heir?..." repeated Schmucke. "Noding matters to me more in dis vorld," returning to his attitude of hopeless sorrow.

"Where are the relatives, the friends?" asked the master of the ceremonies.

"All here!" exclaimed the German, indicating the pictures and rarities. "Not von of dem haf efer gifn bain to mein boor Bons.... Here ees everydings dot he lofed, after me."

Schmucke had taken his seat again, and looked as vacant as before; he dried his eyes mechanically. Villemot came up at that moment; he had ordered the funeral, and the master of the ceremonies, recognizing him, made an appeal to the newcomer.

"Well, sir, it is time to start. The hearse is here; but I have not often seen such a funeral as this. Where are the relatives and friends?"

"We have been pressed for time," replied Villemot. "This gentleman was in such deep grief that he could think of nothing. And there is only one relative."

The master of the ceremonies looked compassionately at Schmucke; this expert in sorrow knew real grief when he saw it. He went across to him.

"Come, take heart, my dear sir. Think of paying honor to your friend's memory."

"We forgot to send out cards; but I took care to send a special message to M. le Presidente de Marville, the one relative that I mentioned to you.--There are no friends.--M. Pons was conductor of an orchestra at a theatre, but I do not think that any one will come.--This gentleman is the universal legatee, I believe."

"Then he ought to be chief mourner," said the master of the ceremonies.--"Have you a black coat?" he continued, noticing Schmucke's costume.

"I am all in plack insite!" poor Schmucke replied in heartrending tones; "so plack it is dot I feel death in me.... Gott in hefn is going to haf pity upon me; He vill send me to mein friend in der grafe, und I dank Him for it--"

He clasped his hands.

"I have told our management before now that we ought to have a wardrobe department and lend the proper mourning costumes on hire," said the master of the ceremonies, addressing Villemot; "it is a want that is more and more felt every day, and we have even now introduced improvements. But as this gentleman is chief mourner, he ought to wear a cloak, and this one that I have brought with me will cover him from head to foot; no one need know that he is not in proper mourning costume.--Will you be so kind as to rise?"

Schmucke rose, but he tottered on his feet.

"Support him," said the master of the ceremonies, turning to Villemot; "you are his legal representative."

Villemot held Schmucke's arm while the master of the ceremonies invested Schmucke with the ample, dismal-looking garment worn by heirs-at-law in the procession to and from the house and the church. He tied the black silken cords under the chin, and Schmucke as heir was in "full dress."

"And now comes a great difficulty," continued the master of the ceremonies; "we want four bearers for the pall.... If nobody comes to the funeral, who is to fill the corners? It is half-past ten already," he added, looking at his watch; "they are waiting for us at the church."

"Oh! here comes Fraisier!" Villemot exclaimed, very imprudently; but there was no one to hear the tacit confession of complicity.

"Who is this gentleman?" inquired the master of the ceremonies.

"Oh! he comes on behalf of the family."

"Whose family?"

"The disinherited family. He is M. Camusot de Marville's representative."

"Good," said the master of the ceremonies, with a satisfied air. "We shall have two pall-bearers at any rate--you and he."

And, happy to find two of the places filled up, he took out